Dreams of Despair
by Alice A.V.D.T McDowell
Summary: This is something I came up with while bored...um...so you're allowed to submit an OC for me to write about. I'll take whatever comes usually/mostly, so good luck! (Better summary inside)
1. Chapter 1

Something I came up with when I was bored.

So basically I want to try and write about a character of another person's (OC's) and I know that's pretty popular right now I guess. So you can come up with an OC and leave it in reviews of you'd like. Or something. I won't make a long list or anything, but try to add vital info like: birthdate, title, age, height, weight, appearance, backstory, personality...things like that and I'll try to write a oneshot or something about him/her. You can add a theme if you want I suppose...

(Sometimes I may see fit to write about my own OC's, not meaning to brag, but I'm quite fit for making them)

Anyways, I...look forward to seeing what you all have! And I'll do my best too!  
(Oh, and until I have uploaded the first two, three chapters, try to refrain from submitting OC's since I have a lot backed up, sorry!)

-Alice


	2. Chapter 2 Kouda Hayama

.

Kouda Hayama loved to cook.  
Literally, every time one would walk past the Hayama residence they would likely do a double-take because it was filled with the smell of food.  
People crowded around the area ever-so-often to get a taste of his famous cooking, ranging from Japanese-based cuisine, to more modern dishes from all over the world.

The seventeen-year-old was famed throughout his town and much farther, offers to participate in worldwide competitions were a daily occurrence to him and he nearly always accepted with confidence and determination that he would win (which could be considered arrogant on the boy's part...but he always did)

He boasted a head filled to the brim with recipes and different cooking styles, constantly growing bored of the recipes in the few cookbooks his mother stored inside their house and choosing to create his own often-his mother was a poor cook, most of everything she made came out burnt or horribly disfigured; not even the dog would take her gooseberry pie; her son would have starved to death if he hadn't learned to cook himself.

Kouda looked forward to with the eagerness of a child (he still was), to the time of day when theclock hand hit 2:00 and he was free to go from school.

There, he tied on his grease-covered apron and heated the oven for his next creation.  
There, his sister Chihiro Hayama, she had started a job as a teacher at a small school to teach history to the third-graders...

Who often waited for him with her earplugs in and iPod full blasting some crappy song from the 60's would turn down the volume and scoot her stool closer to the kitchen to watch her brother's magic begin.  
Everything was perfect for him. Well...was perfect until recently...  
Two days ago...

"Sis! Sis! Guess what?!"  
Chihiro sighed and removed her earplugs, she was sitting on the green armchair in the living room, her feet lifted rather uncomfortably since she was waiting for her now-purple-toenails to dry out.

She rested her chin against her palm and glanced towards the door.  
"Hm?"  
The boy scrambled into the room, his tie was crooked and his hair was windblown and had leaves stuck to it; it looked like he had just run right from school.

Kouda wore a widespread grin across his broad face, his eyes danced with excitement. Kouda usually didn't look this happy unless something really good had happened, and not just the usual: "congrats Mr. Hayama, you have won the _ cooking contest...again!" phone call.

"I got an offer to enter the prestigious Hope's Peak Academy tomorrow!" He squealed in a manner unfitting for a male. His eyes danced with happiness and the shine that came into them whenever he started a new recipe was ten times brighter.

"I'm gonna do an entry test so they can compare me to the other people in the running for 'Ultimate Chef'!" He cheered.

Chihiro whistled and nodded enthusiastically. "Wow! That's pretty big huh?" She said with a sunny smile of congratulations, however it was nothing compared to the ecstatic one of her brother's.

"It is! It is!" Kouda exclaimed happily, clapping his hands and bouncing up and down on his toes, despite his rumpled look, Chihiro couldn't help but smile at the sight. He seemed so full of life...energy right now. Like he had always been before-  
"You haven't looked this happy since...well...her..."  
Suddenly the room went quiet, the energy drained out of it like someone pulled a plug and all the excitement drained right out.

Kouda's face changed from happy, to numb, to downcast...he scowled at his older sister, annoyed. "You didn't have to do that." He snapped without thinking. His voice had a sharpened edge to it, like a cornered rat, Kouda had a peaceful and passive demeanor, he didn't yell often at all...it was usually a rare certainly didn't snap at his older sister; the two of the were like glue.

Well, that seemed to change in an instant when she was mentioned.  
"Whatever." He sighed despondently, his shoulders slumped slightly-he was already ashamed for snapping.  
"I'm sorry." Chihiro said earnestly, she brushed her fingers through her honey-colored hair nervously, she felt sorry for hitting that nerve. "I didn't mean-"  
"It's FINE."

Kouda shook his head and turned away, he shrugged "It's fine,"  
"I'm going to go get ready, I need all of my supplies for tomorrow." "I wanna make a good impression." He said flatly in a shaky voice and started to shuffle over to the direction of the kitchen. Kouda ignored his sister's concerned look she was giving him, although turned away, he knew she was.

Chihiro felt a pang of guilt watching her brother rummage through the mass of pots and pans in the drawer mumbling to himself: "Where the hell'd I put the ladle?"  
She really and truly did remember it all clearly.

Her name was Haruka Aisaka. A pretty girl with soft, brown hair that fluttered in curls and wisps when she walked and golden eyes that reflected one's face, people compared her to an angel, possibly a goddess-she was by far, the most angelic, innocent girl on the planet.  
Also Kouda Hayama's closest friend.

Funny really, Kouda had been kind of...dorky. He used to wear giant corkscrew glasses and sweatshirts to school every day, and he cut his own hair himself. Which doesn't sound too bad if he did it minus the pair of plastic scissors with the Mickey Mouse design, and the soup bowl that he used to collect the fallen hair.

(The soup was hairy the first night he cut his own hair)  
So it was kind of strange that he had attracted the attention of Haruka herself, who simply found the boy a grade below her...sweet.

They became friends soon enough, even though Kouda was shy and sometimes nervous around Haruka Aisaka's quirky behavior.

Even though he tried to make dumplings with her once and accidentally made them explode in her face lord, who needs to know how THAT happened. EVEN if he was still a dork who got excited easily and was surprisingly prone to jealously and heartache, and had managed to change his status to 'recovering-loser' after meeting her.  
(He started to wear jeans instead of baggy pants and went to the barber shop for more professional cuts to impress her

But all of that changed when her once-wealthy father went bankrupt one day and the whole Aisaka family was forced to flee the country, and Haruka up and left without much as a goodbye or a "It's been fun." Or even: "See you." Like that, she was gone.

And left her little dork to wallow in self-pity and depression for a long two months without receiving a letter or any means of communication.

Kouda didn't recover for another year or two, by then he had nearly quit cooking to sit and mope around; his parents didn't have it and made him return to his studies once more.

A little while after, he met another girl (named Victoria Higgins) who likely stuck around him only out of pity-  
-but he didn't care; it was vital for Kouda to forget about his old love.

But he did dislike her name being brought up immensely, so no one really did utter the name Haruka Aisaka in the Hayama household.

Chihiro sighed a little sadly as she watched her brother pacing around the kitchen, scooping up materials and tossing them needlessly into a plastic bag.

* * *

The next day, Kouda Hayama woke up at a good time, he opened the window and let the sunlight stream inside and took a deep breath of morning air.

(A car rolled past his house and ruined it though)

He still grinned with a smile too wide for his face and rushed to comb his messy brown hair for likely the first time in weeks.

(Chihiro heard the water running and nearly thought a pipe had burst: her brother never washed his face in the morning, so she was kind of spooked)  
And Kouda slipped his plaid jacket over his school uniform and a pair of jeans that were cut unevenly at the cuffs because-lord, he hardly ever dressed nicely since all of his clothes were usually covered in cooking oil and crusted with sugar.

(Chihiro was starting to think he was either, very pumped up for his exam, or had hit his head somewhere)

Her brother scrambled from his room, clutching a briefcase that belonged to their father and a crooked tie, barely avoiding crashing into a table with an expensive-looking vase perched on it. He dashed down the hallway, darting out of Chihiro's path and raced down the stairs, his footsteps pounding against the wood and likely waking the whole neighborhood.

Chihiro frowned.

"I haven't hit my head sis..." Kouda said from the bottom of the staircase.  
"Touché." She grumbled.

* * *

Kouda caught the bus to get to the scheduled entrance exam;

It was terribly smelly and sweaty, the few seats inside of his car were jam-packed already so he was forced to grab onto one of the likely unsanitary rails unwillingly-an old man let out a wet cough behind him and rubbed his hand on the pole he held onto.

Oh my god, please let us be there fast... He thought miserably, just thinking of the bacteria crawling up his arm at the moment.

The loudspeaker crackled to life above him.  
"Attention all passengers, we have hit an unexpected delay and will arrive at out destination at 12:00 instead of 11:00. Please remain in your seats for the time being. Thank you and have a nice day."

"Goddammit." Kouda piped up irritatedly without bothering to think. Maybe a little too loudly as well. Multiple passengers leaned their heads to glare simultaneously at him: their expressions spelling:  
"Ya don't say kiddo?"  
Whoopsy.

* * *

One hour later...

* * *

"Ugh!" Kouda exclaimed in both relief and disgust as he fled from that horrible train the second its metallic doors creaked open. Several people rushed past him, likely equally eager to escape the smelly chamber and attend to their jobs ASAP.

"That was awful! I am never taking the train again!" He grumbled, wiping the sweat-sticky hair from his forehead and sighed. "Well, I'm already kinda late, I'd better hurry."  
Kouda stretched his stiffened arms and caught a whiff of something foul.

Scrunching up his nose, he identified it instantly as cigarette smoke and cringed at the horrible smoky stench emitted from HIS jacket no less.

He sort of remembered seeing a lady dressed in a revealing red dress and smoking at least six during the entire train ride in front of him and snorted.  
"Unbelievable."

An elderly women came up behind him limping on a cane and tapped his shoulder. "Pardon me sir?" She croaked scratchily, "huh? Do you need me to help you with something?" Kouda asked, turning around and needing to look down slightly to see her.  
"Er...no; you left your briefcase..."

"Crap!" Kouda screeched in realization, he spun around to catch a brief glimpse of the black bag sitting on one of the seats as the door closed.

Gripping the edge of the door attempting fruitlessly to pry it back open, he barely pushed it open a crack when it started to move again, slowly and then it was really moving farther away from him. Kouda-who wasn't exactly eager to have his bag discovered somewhere in Kyoto or somewhere, ran past the old women and started to sprint after it

He pushed past multiple people and pedestrians, he nearly bowled over an American tourist.  
"Er...sorry?!" He yelled back at the flustered man.

Sweat poured down his face and his breathing became ragged as he ran as fast as his legs would allow, one foot in front of the other one, his legs felt as if they were slowly turning to lead.

But he was nearing the train door ever-so-slowly.

His footsteps pounded against the concrete and he made one last leap forward-  
-he missed.

Actually by a long-shot, his foot slipped in that last moment and he went crashing downward, right into a muddy puddle sitting almost right there for him to land in.

Struggling to stand up from his spot face-down in the puddle, he barely saw the train racing away from him. With his briefcase in it.

Kouda growled something crass under his breath and stared down at his now-muddy jacket, it was smeared with grime and soaked, making it look like he had gone for an incredibly pointless run through the Everglades or something.

"Perfect, all I need now is for a storm to mysteriously appear out of nowhere and ruin what's left of my outfit." He snorted, whatever trace of optimism he carried that morning was indefinitely gone now. Above him the sky rumbled dangerously.

"Damn."

**A/N: Well! Here's my first, thank you for reading it! I had a lot of fun with this so I'm going to make a part 2 for it! I spent a lot of time brainstorming and eating Cheetos. My little sister had enough nerve to tell all of her friends that her big sister writes 'sleazy'** **trash. Special thanks to Zeita Hikari for submitting this OC! Thanks so much!**


	3. Ayaka Harazuki: The Beautiful Blossom

When she is ten, she believes she understands the meaning of beauty.  
To her, it once meant beautiful dresses and fancy jewelry, the kind that all of the girls adored.  
Due to necessity, she is raised to be perfect.

That is what she must strive for after all.

So she ties her hair in ribbons and headdresses with clay beads that are likely very fragile and cost a fortune, she learns tradition and practices her family's old ways and dedicates herself to becoming the perfect daughter.

Attractive, innocent, intelligent, kind.

That is what makes up the perfect young lady-everything she strives to be.

And of course, she always sits primly and straight and attentive during class, even if it would be more comfortable to stretch her legs out leisurely like other kids do.

And she dresses in white blouses with lacy patterns sewn onto the front and long skirts and socks that are really too white for her tastes; she never says anything.

And she behaves as the 'angel' everyone expects her to be, gardening, cooking, embroidery, piano...everything, even if it would be funny to throw a paper airplane over the heads of the students in her class in hopes of hitting that annoying kid in the front.

And Ayaka Harazuki is the definition of 'perfection' because her family would be disappointed if she wasn't.

* * *

Ayaka Harazuki is a wealthy young girl.  
She lives in a large mansion that goes as far as the eye can see, and the whole thing is completed by a giant garden filled with flowers and other plants, grown especially by Ayaka and her mother.

Well, basically the kind of stereotypical lifestyle of a lady.  
But not in so many ways. Ayaka Harazuki falls far from the 'rich-snob' persona often adopted by other females of noble families for instance, she is of kind and generous spirit that leaves everyone wondering if she has ANY faults at all.

She is perfect at nearly everything too: beauty AND brains. (Though not really sports)

Ayaka lives a desirable life and walks elegantly towards a bright future.

Sounds like the kind of cliché life that's stolen away in the blink of an eye.

* * *

She is nine when her mother Masami (who was sick and her fate was likely to be grave) gives her her first kimono of her own, Ayaka is ecstatic as most girls should be. And she squeals in delight and kisses her mother on the cheek before stepping back to admire the thing, indigo adorned with golden flower patterns circling the sleeves and the Sakura flowers covering the front of it.

She begs her mother to help her tie her indigo hair, silky and smooth like Harazuki women traditionally do.

She rushes to show her brother and spin around for him.

And he claps for her and compliments her beauty like the kind of 'gentlemanly' big brother that should exist (rather than the kind that locks their sisters in the bathroom on Thanksgiving and pretends to know nothing about her location)

She wears it all day long with her mother smiling proudly, but with a hint of sadness in her eyes.

* * *

Masami Harazuki was a beautiful young women with a handsome mate and two wonderful children, a well-respected women by her peers, an angelic daughter, a mentor, a perfect wife, a loving mother.

Her heart was weak despite her perfection.

Even the most perfect flower has it's flaws, and Masami's situation indefinitely brought full gravity to these words-not like she could help it or anything.

But fate had entrapped her in its thorny strings and was not far from dragging her away from everything she loved.

Knowing her fate-

-she...she does her best to be the best mother to her children during her time left, her daughter:

Just barely nine, and her son, at eleven and most certainly capable of protecting the family after she passes.  
It makes her happy somehow.

* * *

"Mommy? You are going to get better right?"

Ayaka one day asks, fear in her big green eyes, Masami can almost see her reflection in them and feels a pang of guilt, they are working in the garden digging up weeds to plant a whole batch of poppies that are nearly too big for their pots.

"Yes sweetheart, mommy will get better soon." She says despite the dark shadow of doubt clouding her thoughts.

Ayaka seems relieved briefly and nods, reassured; then her eyes widen further.

"Hey! Mommy! You're supposed to be in bed right now aren't you!"

The girl says in a squeaky, slightly accusatory tone that is unfitting for a little girl like her and almost cute.

Masami nearly laughs at the sight.

"Daddy says you can't move around!" She protests, concern working its way into her tone.

"..."

"Guilty." Masami chuckles, her laugh is like tinkling bells, Ayaka thinks.

"Mommy!"

"Alright, alright! After we plant these I'll go straight back to bed, I promise." She sighs, her daughter's worry is touching, but somehow a bit annoying-she had left her bed to get away from her clingy husband who had been almost attached to her and frantic.

Now her daughter was doing the same. "Good." Ayaka huffs and returns her attention to the flowers.

Masami smiles and lifts up a single terra-cotta pot leaning against a small marble statue,

"Alright, Ayaka here we go...we plant this flower in this..." Masami's voice breaks mid-sentence, everything clouds, Ayaka's bright face seemato blur and spin. "Mommy?"  
Dizziness overtakes the women

The rich soil she stood above suddenly comes dangerously close to her face and suddenly, an impact hits her hard stars explode over her vision before darkness overtook her.

"Mommy!"

* * *

"She'll be ok right?" A frantic voice belonging to a young boy says just outside the door, "I really don't want to disappoint you...but it's a long shot kid." Another voice belonging to a male sighs.

Ayaka wipes her eyes for the hundredth time that hour upon overhearing what the two outside probably thought she didn't and clenches her teeth so tightly, the pressure makes her nearly pass out. But she doesn't.

Instead, Ayaka sits at her mother's side and changes out the cool washcloth on her forehead, having no clue what else to do at this point.

She was raised to be an angelic little girl, not an independent lifesaver.

"Mommy." She sniffles miserably, the women is currently sleeping rather fitfully, occasionally moaning out in her sleep. The sound both hurts and terrifies her daughter, whom prays for her father to return home from work fast.

* * *

Masami had fainted while working in the garden with her daughter unpredictably it was almost scary.

Frantic, Ayaka had screamed for help as loudly as her small voice could allow.

It took a lot of time since the garden was so vast, in that brief moment, Ayaka desperately wished for a smaller home so her voice could have been heard sooner.

Here, in this giant estate, five long minutes of screaming 'till her throat was raw and unyielding any sound had passed before someone came to check on them.

Masami was rushed to the nearest hospital thankfully, but Ayaka feared it was too late.

* * *

"Ayaka." A hoarse voice croaks.

"Mommy?" She says, lifting her head slightly, hopefully. Her face is tear-stained and red.

"Baby, I'm so sorry..." The bedridden women apologizes weakly, reaching her hand out to her daughter.

"No...d-don't be." She hiccups, leaning forward to take her mother's hand into her own. It feels so weak and small now, she feels hopelessness sinking into a giant crater inside her heart.  
"Listen! I know y-you will get better, the doctors are really good at this...s-so I want you to please hold on! A-at least...u-until daddy comes."

"A-Ayaka..."

Masami coughs.

"Come...closer."

"Mommy?" Ayaka says in a hushed tone.

The women takes her other hand from under the blanket, Ayaka's heart sinks when she sees how thin it is.

"Huh?"

Resting in her palm is a small pendant, a beautiful flower with seven petals, each one a single color of the rainbow. Like the ones that she and her mother occasionally admired from the balcony of their home after rainy days.

The memory brings a fresh batch of tears into her eyes.

"Listen...Ayaka...the...fresh...bright...vivid colors...of this...flower...represents...your...own name...Ayaka...and your brother's Arata..." Her mother says softly, shakily, her voice scarcely a whisper.

Ayaka nods urgently, she squeezes her mother's hand even tighter.

"Promise me...you'll blossom into this beautiful flower...even...without...me...I know things...will...be...hard...but some good...will...come from...this...promise..."

"I will mommy. I will."

* * *

Masami Harazuki passed away on March 7th, 2008 of severe heart-illness.

She passed right next to her beloved daughter at her side, quite easily the best way to go some think.

A lieu of flowers arrive all around the same day at different times of her death, Ayaka goes to the door the day after and is nearly buried by flowers piled high.

The scent is intoxicatingly sweet, and the memory of her mother comes back to her.

...

The funeral is a grand one, at least close to a thousand arrive for the whole thing, which is less than a week after her death.

Preparations had been made before at a lightning-fast rate.

The priest spoke in a solemn, mournful tone, which makes Ayaka feel even worse. She is dressed in all black and so is her brother and father, in itchy wool suits that look a tad-bit uncomfortable and more than a little sweaty.

She fails to find something to take her mind off the funeral itself but eventually decides on stroking the petals on her necklace in her own way of mourning.

And she barely cries too (considering that she had cried herself to sleep for three nights straight) a bonus, save for a few stray tears that slide down her face only to be swiped away immediately.

People come from all directions to pay their respects to the women, dressed in a white dress with lace around the collar. (Ayaka argues that she should wear her kimono but no one listens) She is beautiful even in death, Ayaka thinks as she reluctantly goes up to the front to kiss her mother goodbye.

"Goodbye mommy."

* * *

Several hours later, multiple people come passing by, all looking equally sullen and depressed.

And as one could expect, they all pass by with their sullen and sad eyes that are all totally downcast and move almost in sync, it's almost scary Ayaka thinks how their movement looks.

It's maddening really, she can see their movement all paced and in sync and it feels like some sort of bad dream that she desperately wants to see end, but it's hypnotizing and drawing her in.

Some leave their spots from the long flow to pat her on the back or squeeze her shoulder slightly with the words: "I'm sorry for your loss." Or maybe, "Our thoughts are always with you."

An old lady comes up to her from the front and takes her hands in her wrinkly ones and whispers some sort of blessing in monotone, well...based off of her tone...her voice is quiet and gravelly and only gibberish seems to be spouting from her mouth.

Ayaka frowns in slight confusion as the women vanishes back into the crowd.

Another person emerges from the crowd of people walking past and Ayaka is all but unfazed and unsurprised to see a girl.

A young one that looks no older than she, dressed in a black dress with lots of lace and frills that cascade down her side. She carries a black umbrella (also lined with lace) over her thin shoulders.

She has pale skin and black hair, tied into identical drills on either sides of her head, they are quite long.

Ayaka nearly wonders if she traveled through time from the Victorian Age, eying her garb and elegance, which actually makes her: a rather elegant female herself, feel mediocre at best in comparison to her flowing beauty. Whoever the girl was, she certainly seemed far older than her short-stature suggested.

The girl doesn't seem to be looking at anything in particular, and Ayaka thinks she'll walk right past her-

-But she doesn't.

She stops, right as she's next to Ayaka, and leans slightly in a few inches and whispers:

"Just so you know, tears won't make the dead happy. But without them, you certainly won't be able to smile for them either." Before turning on her black heel and seemingly vanishing back into the crowd of people.

* * *

On the ride home from the funeral home, Ayaka feels rather numb, her father has left them in the care of their aunt (who hardly knows them but still agreed to babysit them for the time-being) while he goes to phone relatives who could not make it.

She feels weary and too tired to cry onto her brother's shoulder, he looks as if the same weariness has embedded itself inside his heart. Arata Harazuki does not say anything either.

The ride home is quite long and silent.  
...

When she gets home she runs up the stairs and locks herself inside the giant bedroom that she has had decorated and fitted perfectly for herself and slides against the door, feeling the despair that she had tucked away since Masami's passing into her heart slowly start to spill out in small little streams until the cracks grew bigger and there was all of that pain and envy of it all was gushing out in rivers.

And she presses her hands to her chest and clutches the pendant so hard it she fears it will break and cries for what feels like hours because-she feels so much older at the moment with everything she's loved so dearly gone just like that, and her hair is falling out of its neat bun in clumps and strands, making her look like a heartbroken girl who just got stood up by her date.

And she doesn't know how much time passes before Arata comes up to her door and tells her that he doesn't know what to do either and to cry as much as she wants because that's what he ultimately has chosen to do.

* * *

For the next month or so, Ayaka feels like she's come undone. She does not stand with her original grace, and instead sits curled up inside of her room; nothing, nothing will every be right again.

And she cuts school for about a week, lacking the energy to even stand up properly without crying hysterically and in fear of whatever her classmates will say.

She even takes her favorite Sunday dress and shreds the bottom of it and rips the lace from the hem and simply just mutilates the thing as an outlet for her despair before her common sense comes back in a rush and she cries over what she's done sitting in a pile of torn lace and white fabric.

It isn't even until she remembers the promise she made to her mother, that she bites her lip so hard it bleeds and removes her old needlework from the chest sitting in her closet. Which Ayaka had planned to sew a handkerchief for her mother and painfully chooses to finish the stitches, each one bringing back another memory, only for it to be soaked by a fresh round of tears pouring from her eyes.

And maybe she's just desperate, or just wants to become a proper lady, the beautiful flower her mother wanted her to become and asks her father to find a school for her to practice these requirements at.

(She overhears him on the phone, trying to hook up with the best royals school in Japan and feels secretly grateful for his efforts)

The next day her father surprises her with the news of her enrollment at the prestigious Teikoku Gakuen.

* * *

Her new school is rather...'interesting'.

She enters at ten and by eleven, her name is whispered throughout the long corridors and halls.

It does suit all of the requirements for a typical 'royals' school. She is not disappointed, but more pleasantly surprised she exceeds expectations.

Like always, Ayaka has somehow slipped back into that 'perfect' demeanor and works herself to the bone in her studies, along with: music, arts and craft, embroidery, poetry, ikebana, handicraft, and gardening. She is the perfect, model student and is respected greatly as her mother was.

...But with a few minor differences, for one...she is more distant and a bit more nervous around people-likely the effects of her recent tragedy and even more recent maturing to the world's ups-and-downs.

She is admired greatly, be it open admiration or more distant but genuine-without-envy respect.

With an almost equal amount of disdain she receives.

Not everyone is exactly trusting of the wealthy girl who is perfect in every way and comes from a well-to-do family clad in fancy clothing adorned with jewels and ribbons.

(Ayaka sometimes wonders how exactly, these common-like people got into Teikoku Gakuen in the first place)

She doesn't mind exactly because it is not the distrusting, doubtful students that surround her every day that is the reason of her pain, but rather the hopeless feeling of despair that stems from her mother's loss, and that adds a lifetime of pain onto her shoulders.

* * *

Twelve is sort of the beginning of a new start for Ayaka, well, not like she's miraculously moved past the heartache from about a year and a half ago; she has something to at least devote her attention to now:

Perfection.

Ayaka juggles all of her classes and club activities with precision and strategically (she hasn't even missed a single art club meeting) and maintains her status as a perfect student.

She has become almost 'breathtakingly-beautiful' over the span of such a short time even after the death of her mother, everyone can agree-friend or foe, she has indeed blossomed beautifully, and needless to say, nobody is shocked when the teachers start to refer to her as 'The Yamato Nadeshiko.'

A fitting title as it does literally translate to "personification of an idealized Japanese women" and that soon becomes her nickname in school and occasionally at home.

"Why does everyone call me that?" She asks Mami, another wealthy girl from Europe who attends class with her one day in slight exasperation. Mami had transferred and would attend for about a month before returning to Europe.

The girl shrugs and says: "I dunno, but I'm pretty sure it's what your mom wanted right?"

And then turns her attention to another conversation before Ayaka can ask how she knew that.

* * *

Ayaka sometimes walks past the sports clubs, where kids throw baseballs to each other or sprint across the field at an almost abnormal pace.

She sometimes stops to admire the ability that her fellow students possess and does her best to force down the occasional desire to join in.

A lady can't play sports, was what her mother used to tell her. And how she wishes to break free of that one part of her destiny; oh how fun it all looks.

But she is a good girl and still wishes to please her dead mother nonetheless and swallows the urge to run and frolic in the hot sun with the other students and compete in friendly games like they all tend to.

* * *

Ayaka Harazuki really hasn't a clue what romance and heartbreak is until she is fourteen, another two years pass by her, filled to the brim with her usual studies and clubs (a majority of it is usually just ikebana and other girly activity)

She is fourteen at the time and feels far older than she was back then at ten, and a weariness seemingly would sink into her bones deep down whenever she thinks of those days.

The promise to her mother weakens her and also gives her the strength that she still uses to keep moving forward.

...

(Now...)  
The boy she fell in love(ish) with was a young prodigy, a handsome fellow with good status and overly average perfection (something she had been taught to look for in a man) in her art class.

And she really did think that, when he flashed a toothy-white smile at her that one time, she had found someone finally.

But fate is a cruel thing and even despite their occasional greetings in the hall, and despite the pretty bracelet he bought her one day on valentines, there is no such thing as a perfect romance and Ayaka really knew that for sure when he revealed that he just wanted her money after their 6-month long friendship.

And it was really that boy, who added to her heartache and made her wish SHE had died alongside her mother, and for a while...the pain and envy contained in her heart really does give way to a sense of hopeless longing that makes her believe truly, she is dying. Slowly.

And so she gives up on those illusions that there will be a person in her world that cares and believes in her too much and will always be by her side regardless of anything.

Yes, Ayaka chooses to forget that one part of her that remains the little lost girl locked inside the tower also known as her heart.

But really, she can never find the key and save that little girl because it's essentially nonexistent now.

She wishes with every fiber of her being, that a miracle would come and save her from the tower.

* * *

Another year passes by, a cold, long year that is filled with none of her old sunshine and rainbows, but rather just a gloomy, darkness that is fitting for her now.

No matter how perfect she is, Ayaka's social status has dropped. Maybe just barely, but it's definitely there. Really, she's the only one to blame for it now: she has stopped being so trusting altogether almost even if she does mean well.  
...

She calls her brother up on the phone and she feels almost bitter when she hears his cheerful tone announce that he would take over the family business (honestly, why couldn't things be so perfect for her?)

And when he asks if she's alright, Ayaka feels guilt and some tiredness that has caught up to her way too early as she says yes. "Good luck Arata." She says politely before resting her finger on the End Call button.

"Stay strong for mom Ayaka. Love you."

* * *

The next morning Ayaka calls home only to find the house steward at the end of the line.

Disappointed, she asks him to tell her father she said hello.

To which he replies:  
"I'm afraid I cannot, he is gone for business along with your brother."

"...um...what?!"

"Exactly as I say miss, they went to prepare a new location for the business, which will expand in due time. I don't know all the details."

"When will they come back?"

"Well, they were supposed to return tomorrow morning, however there was an unexpected delay and they will return the following week. I apologize miss."

"No, no...it's fine...thanks anyways..."

"My pleasure."

"Hey, excuse me...but may I ask what the 'delay' was?"

"..."

"They were checking out some very prestigious school that your father hopes you to attend someday from what I know miss."

"And that school would be...?"

"..."

"..."

"Sorry..."

"..."

"Bad connection over here miss..."

"..."

"Hope's Peak Acade..."

"..."

Beep!

* * *

The next day, Ayaka Harazuki sends an entrance form to Hope's Peak Academy.

* * *

They say that at a certain age, a teenager hits somewhat of a rebellious phase.

Be it the kind that's filled with fire and danger and velocity like all teenagers somehow all manage to make themselves out to be sooner or later, or the sort that's more mellow and still peaceful, calm waves. But the boat rocks every now and then and when it does, it has the danger of freight train.

Ayaka is sixteen now, and really...it doesn't seem to be there at all.

Her 'rebellion' is really both short-lived and almost nonexistent, save for a few cut classes that will likely not alter her future in any way.

Honestly. She doesn't feel any different from when she was ten; she is and in so many ways that might not be very visible but are still there. Although she does ask some of her classmates occasionally if she's any different from when she first entered in any way, earnestly...and they all say no nearly all the time.

Ayaka feels somewhat disappointed in some way even if it is more of a brief unsatisfied kind of disappointment rather than a long-lasting one.

Thank goodness.

After all, she wouldn't be the perfect angel if she did turn out rebellious and dangerous like all teens.

* * *

But the next morning, a small-sized boy who seemingly came from a family of British nobles sits down next to her in class-

-she remembers rumors that he had gotten into a car accident over the last summer and came back with an eyepatch and several scars on his upper body, that can be glimpsed whenever he raises his hand (rarely) in class. Ayaka feels tempted to move to a different seat until he says something in a whispery, raspy voice.

Ayaka isn't friends with him. He's more of the wallflower that her mother warned her to stay away from. Frankly, no encouragement for that was needed: she was a bit put-off by the numerous writings and scribbled on his desk. (Dates and quotes completely cover it)

"It is true. You have changed. You do not know it but you have. So much." Is all he says in that hushed tone of his before lifting up his book bag and slipping out the doorway as the bell rings.

* * *

He misses homeroom and does not appear for the rest of the day. When she asks the other teachers, none of them really recall a boy with a white eyepatch and a permanent frown ever entering one of their classes.

She peeks at his desk and sees the date of his entrance to Teikoku Gakuen.

He's been attending for over five years.

* * *

A few days after, she returns from her final class of the day prepared to start working on her homework ASAP to find a girl standing at her door waiting anxiously.

She is wearing a pair of maryjanes that nerdy-type girls wear and her hair is tied up in a long braid that goes to about her knees. She's dressed in a standard school uniform that's rather tacky, but Ayaka only thinks this.

Ayaka notices the girl's hair is tied with red ribbons that don't really compliment the rest of her outfit. (She's twiddling her thumbs nervously, like if she were to wait any longer, someone would come and scold her.

"Can I help you?" Ayaka asks politely, and curiously as she makes her way over.

When she gets closer Ayaka realizes there is a wrap of bandages around her forehead, covering her right eye, she wonders what in the world happened that requires bandages around her head-some sort of disfigurement?

"Oh...u-uh, I h-have a letter for you..." She says timidly, holding out a shaky arm that clutches a white envelope in its bony fingers.

"Thanks?" She mumbles and takes the letter from the girl, who looks so nervous Ayaka nearly fears she will pass out.

"Y-your very welcome miss!" She squeaks before pushing past Ayaka and running down the hall with speed that doesn't seem possible for her bony legs, but who is Ayaka to judge?

And it doesn't mean much to the normal person.

Except.

It does, considering that Ayaka is 90% sure it's the same girl she saw at her mother's funeral. And if so, she hasn't aged a day.

* * *

Hope's Peak Academy has spoken at last.

According to the letter.

She is chosen as the SHSL/Ultimate Yamato Nadeshiko.

The irony is not lost on her, Ayaka thinks.

* * *

She calls up her family minutes after recieving the letter, they all are incredibly happy for her. Her father seems pleasantly surprised that she got in all on her own and offers his highest praise and encouragement.

Arata just stays silent for a few moments on the other end and just tells her good luck and she wonders what's happened to him over the course of those years they'd been apart.

Instead of asking, she bites her lip and thanks both of them profoundly and swears to come back successful.

"Best of luck my dear." Her father says.

"I doubt it." Is what Ayaka thinks she hears on the other end from her brother, before his voice speaks up, "Yeah, go get 'em Ayaka." Before hanging up on her.

She contemplates feeling hurt or disregarding his change in persona altogether and decides on the latter.

...

An hour later, her father calls her back to apologize on Arata's behalf and explains that the women that he had been doing business with was partially at fault. The two had supposedly grown close and even went as far as to start dating, but when he proposed to her, she unfortunately had to turn him down over a new offer in London.

They had lost contact ever since and Arata had lost essentially all of his old energy to keep working.

Ayaka tells her father to say that she's sorry to hear about it on the phone before saying goodnight.

Even though she's really just filled with some sick pleasure that her brother's love life was as crappy as her own and after hanging up, she goes outside and laughs, a cold, empty sound emitted from her perfect mouth for what feels like hours before returning inside and wonders what the hell is happening to her.

* * *

She gets a call from the school psychologist shortly after because for god's sake...she may as well have been having a stroke."

But she is too happy to even care.

* * *

Ayaka Harazuki wears her favorite blouse with a blue ribbon tied to the front. She nearly has second thoughts (it's too girly) she thinks before remembering she doesn't care what anyone thinks anymore.

She wears a long skirt the barely brushes above her knees (and gets multiple comments, saying her attire is too 'modest').

And when she looks into the mirror, she can't help but think that she HAS changed from the angelic version of Ayaka, to the slightly more stingy-distrustful version that is nearly the same but not in so many ways.

She twirls around in front of it and admires the way her indigo hair flutters from the motion, long and flowing. And she puts on her favorite headpiece to finish the look before clasping on her pendant and grins back at the reflection staring back at her with a confident smile.

After all, today is 'Hope's Peak Academy' day and she wouldn't miss it for the world.

Her eyes are shockingly bright and full despite the hours she spent late at night memorizing the ground rules she is likely to forget but thinks it'll be good to at least memorize them.

(No cigarettes in class, fights on school grounds are prohibited at all times unless special permission is granted i.e. training and other activities, and curfew is at 8:00PM)

Giving one last glance at herself, in order to absolutely scrutinize her apparel and also to reassure herself she looks perfect as always, Ayaka thinks she just saw her reflection blink.

* * *

The train ride is long. Ayaka thankfully, has scored a good seat that isn't filled with hippies and homeless people.

She has her books and needlework to occupy herself as the train creaks along the rails.

Beside her, a women is rocking her baby to sleep and Ayaka wonders if she will find herself in the same position. She smiles warmly at the women, who smiles tiredly back.

Ayaka leans back and closes her eyes.

She wonders what will happen when she sets foot on the sacred schoolgrounds that are rumored to shape one's future.

A loud noise jolts her right out of her stupor and she glances around to look where it came from.

It sounded sort of like a teenage BOY to be honest. And she really didn't think the train was capable of making a creak in that specific noise category.

Her eyes soon fell onto a boy with brown hair, clutching a pole so hard, his knuckles were white.

Beside him, a bunch of coughing hippies surrounding him chatted and just made very 'unsanitary' noises.

Ayaka couldn't really help but giggle despite herself, discreetly, of course. She nearly laughed for real when she saw the boy look upwards rather miserably and mouth something like...

"Screw my life. Screw my life. Screw my life. Screw. My. Fricking. Life."

She could literally see the pained expression in his eyes when someone sneezed.

She laughed right then.

* * *

When you are sixteen everything seems so good-going for you.

You're heading towards a bright future with many possibilities, there you stand before the great building known as 'Hope's Peak' with determination and a smile on your perfect face.

Your hair, the color of midnight floating in the wind in perfect, delicate curls.

There you stand before your whole life. Which waits ahead of you and starts, with that first step.

And you take it, you aren't stupid. You take that first step forward that is the gateway towards that bright future, that will make all of your hard work count for real.

You take that step-to find everything spin like a merry-go-round, twirling around like a spiral. Rotating, swirling...ish.

Or maybe it's just blurring. Whatever it is, the whole thing starts to blur and spin. Your vision tunnels and the future that you walk towards spins away from you.

Farther.

Farther...

Farther...

"Goodnight Ayaka Harazuki."

**Well, ok this is my second chapter. I want to thank HachimitsuOukan for this OC submission! This was fun, I think this may have been somewhat confusing actually, but this is basically just a cliche story about a girl who lived a perfect life but slowly she watches as it seemingly unravels some. Just a small change. And she lives like she has always lived because there isn't any point if not. This made me crazy nostalgic...I feel bad for Ayaka-chan...well, if you didn't realize, Kouda-san made a cameo in this. And I know it may not fit together perfectly, basically he was supposedly headed to an entrance exam to enter Hope's Peak and compete against the other people in the running for 'Ultimate Chef'. Ayaka was chosen right off the bat. So it takes place during different times. On different days actually. It may make some sense later, like the original series, their memories are altered, so what seems to be the same day may be completely different ones.**

**See ya next chapter!**

**-Alice **


	4. The Boy With A Gray Eye

Once upon a time,

I fell in love with a beautiful boy with long black hair and a gray eye. The other one was covered in bandages and hidden away from the light. I think he had a complex over his one gray one though.

He never really spoke to anyone at all, the first day he came in was all but eventful: short introduction speech, hobbies, likes, dislikes, dreams, etc. He only gave his name in the end.

Once in 5th grade, I fell in love with a disagreeable boy with long black hair and a gray eye. His skin was about as pale as powdered milk and he always came to school with band-aids on his face and wrists.

I initially assumed him to be a girl despite the way he dressed, I spent a long time studying him because I wasn't sure what gender he even BELONGED to.

My inquires were cleared shortly after when he said rather snippily one day:

"I am a male, thank you."

* * *

He never spoke at all to me even though we sat next to each other. I don't think he dislikes me particularly because he lent me his science textbook even though me, being the clumsy little ditz I am, he never saw it again.

I remember the day that I dropped my piece of pottery that I had specially made for my parents for school sharing and it had been reduced to a mess of broken shards of different colors. He just looked at me, bored and scoffed.

"It is unfitting to cry over something so superficial."

I told him that my parents would be disappointed and that did nothing to earn myself any sympathy.

"You ought to not shed tears for another's sake."

* * *

Although he called me 'incorrigible and excessively nosy' once when I tried to make him remove the bandages that covered the right of his face so I could see what remained of his right eye.

It was never brought up again.

* * *

I fell in love with a very petite boy with midnight black hair and a single gray eye that sparkled with all the wisdom and knowledge that I never would hope to gain. I called him short as a joke once and he got incredibly mad because by then I was about 4' 8" and he was 4' 0" and didn't like being poked fun at for his height.

* * *

I fell in love with an amicable young boy with long black hair and a gray eye. He mellowed out and eventually started speaking to me one day in the middle of second semester and I went home and pretty much jumped for joy and went out to buy ice cream to celebrate with absolutely no one.

His smile was bright and sunny, like a thousand fireworks that would go off in my head whenever he happened to glance my way.

Almost in a youthful fashion he would grin at me across the street or on the playground and I would wonder if I had died and had gone to heaven.

Later on passed to the 6th grade year.

I was in love with a curious boy with long black hair and a single gray eye. He formerly attended school wearing typical T-shirts and shorts, but always attended wearing baggy sweatshirts and long shorts that went past his knees.

Apparently his arms had become horribly scarred over the summer break, I was

told.

It was true I guess, maybe not just physical, but emotionally too because for three months...he ignored me and my presence. I went home and cried for hours whenever he intentionally looked the other way.

* * *

In 6th grade, I was in love with a pitiable boy with long black hair and a single gray eye. He came to school with bandaged wrists and arms and his face usually sported a white bandage. He never brought it up, and usually dismissed it as a fight or accident.

The teacher eventually became suspicious and assumed domestic abuse one day and inadvertently riled up the entire grade with rumors and false accusatory threats.

* * *

I knew that he always disregarded his own feelings and instead did his best to focus more on studying and schoolwork; I caught him in the janitor's storeroom eating lunch by himself because he was too ashamed to show his face in the public's eye.

I invited him to sit with me and he got incredibly pissed.

I guess he doesn't like sympathy.

* * *

The next day he showed me his arms which were free of the bandages and admitted that his aunt sometimes went a little 'crazy' since his parents weren't around and occasionally threw stuff and hit him, disregarding it all as 'no big deal'.

I was both disgusted by his treatment and saddened by it when I became aware I wasn't much better either.

He asked me to keep his cuts a secret (or at least say it was a cat if asked) because he didn't want his aunt to get into trouble. (But...I think he made some of them himself).

In 6th grade I was in love with a maniacal boy with long black hair and a gray eye that was always covered by a medical eyepatch.

He talked about suicide a lot and a whole lot of death. It scared me to an extend where I actually thought he was going to do it.

For some reason I couldn't ever abandon him because Lordy...he had a place in my life no matter how small and I took the time to research depression and observe his scars and his permanent bandage on his face inflicted by likely his aunt.

I'm not good with suicide negotiation I guess.

I tried to cheer him up; he found out what was going on and cut me off when I attempted to share one of my gummy worms that my mom packed me.

I guess it was a mistake to boast something he never would have again.

* * *

When I walked home with him in silence, I asked if he hated me for sticking my nose where it didn't belong and he didn't say anything for a long time before he just brushed the thing off with a:

"I don't hate anyone. More or less myself, I wish I was dead."

I wished he had admitted a fierce, burning hatred towards ME instead because that would have hurt so much less.

* * *

In 7th grade I was in love with an intelligent boy with long black hair and a gray eye.

His quiz scores were the best in the whole middle school and possibly the high school.

I think he was either praised as a 'genius' or belittled and branded as a 'geek' by typical school standards. I didn't care what he was because I loved him for almost no reason at all.

Ironic how love works: I'd known him for two years and by 7th grade, my hair was long and I had 'developed' much, much more. He on the other hand...looked none than a day older then the second he walked into my 5th grade classroom for the first time.

His height had not improved even though he now wore shoes and boots with wedges to increase his height by an inch or two. I was 5' 1" and his head went below my shoulders. I should have felt embarrassed but for some reason, with all of the melancholy carried on the shoulders of a mere boy that resonated with a twinge of pain, he seemed so much older and wiser.

I suppose that single fact kept us both on (unevenly) balanced grounds.

* * *

In 7th grade I was in love with a ghostly boy with long black hair and a gray eye.

He hung his head often and didn't look up. He soon became a bit involved with some of the creepy spiritual stuff that only gypsies like.

He would go to the fortune-teller and became obsessed with horoscopes and 'fate'. He stayed up late reading them and would occasionally call me to warn be of bad luck concerning my horoscope and zodiac. Of course none of it came true, but I still felt bad for him and pretended that I took caution for the so-called misfortune and pretended I held any sort of interest in his new habit.

He once told me about some sort of 'Sorcery-Induced Immortality' that could grant eternal life. I was terribly uninterested and highly put off by it.

I watched pained as he would play with his ouija board and 'commune' with the spirits as he called it. I couldn't handle it, and one day called the police. I couldn't help it, I knew easily: I'd be riddled with guilt forever, but I acted on impulse; I feared he would be taken into counseling sooner or later and perhaps even held BACK. I wanted him with me for as long as possible. The reason I went to the principle constantly to beg her to put me in the same class as him. I never knew what happened next, but I believe his 'hobby' was restricted after that because he never brought up ghosts again.

* * *

In 8th grade I was in love with a unique boy with long black hair and a single gray eye.

He was different vastly, I don't think he really cared too much about it all.

But in the eye of stereotypes, I guess different is bad. He probably thought so too. His cuts and scars came back after spring break (prior to a major humiliation due to word getting out of his knitting hobby). He was still kind to me and brought me hard candy occasionally after school and tried to smile even though I knew he had forgotten. I know he was in pain though.

* * *

In 8th grade, I was in love with a terribly trying boy with long black hair and a gray eye.

He was stubborn and if that wasn't enough, his honesty and sheerness was almost cruel in a way that makes you wonder if he was trying to offend you when he told you to lose weight...or be helpful; you'll just look stupid in that new dress you bought.

I really liked that dress.

But for the sake of that cruel, innocent little boy with black hair and his gray eye, I exercised much more even though I was FAR from being fat or anything along those lines.

(I think HE was too skinny) god, the boy was nearly anorexic.

But he still was snippy and slightly cold and indifferent to others-including me on the occasion.

I think that was one small factor in his personality that seemed about as settled as the ocean that is calm and mellow one second before changing into a raging, stormy typhoon.

The kinds of changes that needed to be observed quickly and if you even so much as blink, you'll miss it entirely.

* * *

In 8th grade I was in love with a blithe and buoyant boy with long black hair and a gray eye that seems to glow.

This was near the end of first semester and the classes were just starting to become terribly difficult for me; I'm sort of stupid and all that.

He was cheerful because he got an A+ in cooperation...his worst subject (no surprise there). But I think part of the reason was because his aunt was in a better mood since getting a lover and had hit him less.

Maybe for a while, but I benefitted from it all. As long as he was happy, so was I.

I had zero sense of independence and was cheerful whenever he showed up to walk to school with me with a smile.

More so, I was gloomy whenever he turned away from me.

But I've always been a happy and cheerful person in contrast to his 'excessively-often: depression that came in bouts and left like small puffs of smoke into the sky'.

Call me crazy, but I've wondered often if the black-haired boy that I loved was the same person 24/7.

He was cheerful I think, or maybe he was dark and indifferent. I prefer the 'cheerful' theory instead I think.

If I was the sun with its bright and illuminating lights, he was probably the moon that shone vastly, but with a melancholy gleaming that was lonely in the darkened sky.

* * *

In 8th grade I was in love with a numb boy with long black hair and a gray eye.

This semester, he was clearly neutral.

A rare occurrence, because for the love of God, he wasn't snippy, lonely, depressed, or amiable.

Just plain. He was polite as ever and seemingly did his part in a group. I watched from close up, and from afar as he just seemed frozen to his surroundings. His voice sounded like an old record bound to endless replay.

Numb.

* * *

In 9th grade I was in love with a dangerous boy with long black hair and a gray eye.

I think some driving force was getting to him and it changed SOMETHING in him; a few days after 9th grade started, he started to wear emo-like clothes and lots of skulls and rings.

It was creepy and his eyes constantly looked sunken and dark-ringed. He was sleep-deprived.

I didn't know what else to do for him; I stuck next to him but I found it hard sometimes.

He would push me away but reach out to me at other times and the first hurt me, and somehow...the second just had a way of sewing (jaggedly) my feeling back together so loosely the seams could burst.

I knew from the start but I didn't look back; befriending that torn-up, pale boy would leave a crater inside me the size of Texas...but I didn't look back.

Even if that hole was too big for me to fix, if the contents of my heart spilled onto the ground: Ruby red and scarlet and rusty altogether, I could somehow find a way to piece it together. I was the one who bandaged him and I swore to be the one to sew back together the scars and slashes along his flesh as well because I would only be the one sane enough to hold us together.

Question was, for how much longer would I wait in vain as the boy with black hair and his empty gray eye walked ahead of me, too far beyond my reach...before I couldn't fix us anymore.

* * *

In 9th grade I gave up on the boy with long black hair and a gray eye.

We walked home one day, him in front, his shoulder sagging with the weight of not only his heavy bag. Me in the back, trailing half-heartedly a few steps in the back like I always did.

It was raining, or had started to when I eventually stopped walking altogether and with nowhere else to look, my eyes glanced downwards.

"Y'know...I can't do this anymore."

"...What?"

"We've both been selfish so far...I could never understand you and you always pushed me away."

"I don't know which side of you is real, and I'm tearing myself apart trying madly to find out...and you know something? I'll betcha I never will. I'm sorry about it."

I didn't know what exactly I was saying, even though I had rehearsed the words so many times in my head they all seemed to die away with each letter I sounded out. They all caught in my throat but it was too late to stop.

"..."

"I was too naive, you were too lost, we both made mistakes so I can only pray for you at this point. I'm sorry. I hope someone else will come into your life and save what's left of you; I clearly can't make the cut."

I could feel his single eye studying me, scrutinizing me. I had hopes. Hopes that he would cut me off, tell me I was wrong. Tell me I was wrong to think that and beg me to stay; I knew he wouldn't. I knew he wouldn't stop to consider me. He always walked ahead and I walked behind.

I took a deep breath, inhaling more rain than air.

"Just...just...find a way to keep going on when I'm not here...ok? Stay...you'll find a way to keep living."

When he finally spoke, the raindrops soaked us both to the bone and I had no words left.

"That is where you are incorrect."

"I do not wish to live."

Before turning away from me for likely the last time and continuing on, his head lowered, but not in shame.

Nostalgia.

I felt the seams ripping open.

* * *

In 9th grade, I loved a sad boy with long black hair and a gray eye.

I did everything I possibly could to take my mind off of him. I dated another kid a grade above me for one, he was a charming thing with brown hair and electrical blue eye that gave off sparks.

He was nothing like the black-haired boy I loved once upon a time.

There was a cold air to him I suppose, it wasn't like the one that surrounded the one I used to love dearly.

He was taller for one, he was absurdly popular with girl yipping at his heels and admirers from afar chasing after him constantly. I wasn't the envious type and settled for being around him, mostly kept for comical relief (I think).

Even though this was nearly the same, I walked behind him, farther than I was with the boy with one eye.

I never could dream of attaining his pace and was only content with being behind.

So when he found another and left me, I couldn't really cry that much and settled for moping around for a few hours before deciding that men were scumbags.

* * *

I remember one of our assignments, to bring in some artifact from our pasts or current lives and talk about it. Or something that represented you.

I chose an old stuffed bear with button eyes that I had held dear to my heart since preschool-which was ridiculed by my peers and shamed for the utter childishness of it all.

The boy with black hair wasn't in my class this year; I assumed that even if he WAS, he wouldn't lift a finger to help me.

Later on, after school was over (I was saved by the miracle known as the bell) and I discovered, from a reliable source, that the boy with one eye had brought something.

I was surprised to hear it and upon my inquires, the girl merely chuckled and said something about a glass jar filled with tap water labeled: Tears I [could have] cried, but didn't anyways.

My heart sank when I heard it because I figured he was trying to soften the blow; that many tears he COULD have shed could easily rival that of the ocean.

* * *

I didn't forget the boy that I loved once upon a time and would spend a lot of time at home, crying over what people said about me behind my back...or directly to it...but mostly because I was scared for his safety too.

* * *

In 9th grade, I once loved a lost boy with long black hair and a gray eye.

In school, I tried to talk to him because I knew he had reclaimed his old interest in death and lost his own interest in living (yeah, that's right, I kept track of him still).

He brushed me off and kept walking when I approached him in the halls and fled down the stairs when I intercepted him on our way to class. He even ducked into the boy's bathroom to hide from me when I attempted to pull him out of lunch line (I followed him in).

I chased him the whole day.

Eventually it stopped altogether when the bell rang and I blocked his exit from class. By then he had an angry red vein sticking out of his neck and I thought for sure he would jump on me like a rabid animal. I knew I had worn his patience thin.

But I offered to walk with him and was refused. I asked to carry his books (met with a "Eat Lead"). I even asked how he was doing or if he wanted to talk...

"Shut up."

"Please! You won't go anywhere like this...but if it's any condolences, wherever you go-I'll follow."

"..."

"I will see you in hell then, you idiot"

* * *

The next day I tried to pass notes to him throughout the day.

Hard.

But I managed somehow with a few scraps of paper, a pencil, and a sunny smile that screamed "oh, nothing to see here Ma'am." In order to avoid teacher's suspicious stares.

I wrote my first with a shaky hand that trembled with every word.

Please let me help.

It came back sooner then I expected because in less than 5 minutes, the note returned.

Why do you care?

Because I do. I love you. I want you to be happy.

* * *

My happiness has nothing to do with you.

I bit my lip but picked up my pencil and scribbled out my reply.

...

Please. If you keep it up, you'll have nothing left. I said BEFORE.

...

So?

...

If you leave, what will happen to everyone? Think about someone besides yourself for once.

I was desperate at this point as my eyes prickled and I shook as I wrote out words that I thankful didn't have to say: I could never bring myself to speak aloud.

...

Screw off. You know nothing.

...

...

I'm serious. I know what you're thinking and that's plain selfish. I'm sorry, it's true. You'll hurt a whole nation with that kind of intention.

...

I was not loved vastly, nor widely. I have no friends and nobody who cares enough. I have not ever had anyone to care about or anyone to protect. Not mom, not dad, not Sayaka, not auntie...nobody.

...

For a brief moment, I felt a twinge of jealousy as I wondered who 'Sayaka' was.

Well find something to fight for. Please. I'm begging of you.

...

What is left to fight for? I do not wish to continue fighting.

...

That's because you've spent all this time fighting for yourself. Just you. Nobody else.

...

Your point?

...

...Try fighting for someone else. Just this once.

...

I sighed and folded my last paper after I had passed the note, it felt heavier in my hands.

When class was dismissed finally, I left quickly and proceeded to my locker, which was messy as always, upon opening the door, a small slip of card paper was folded inside.

Curious, I unfolded it and read the note aloud.

I have no one else to fight for.

I think I died a little.

* * *

In 9th grade, I once loved a lamentable boy with long black hair and a gray eye. I saw him after school near a tree, some kids were teasing him. It broke my heart that I couldn't do anything any longer by bore with it and watched, pained as they took away his books and his backpack san emptied out the contents and laughed at his needlework like they did years prior.

And I watched him from a distance and noticed his shoulders tremble and his silence and acceptance to their taunts and jabs.

I was about to go over and help him, but another women entered the scene, a thin and lanky-looking female with a thin face san stringy black hair. She yelled something at the boy's tormentors...something unintelligible and when they ran off whooping and shouting as they went, she reached out to him and struck him on the side of his face.

My heart sank to my stomach when she grabbed his arm and started to drag him away, his sleeve was pulled up and I glimpsed an impressive array of evil-looking red marks that I was convinced were NOT his aunt's doing.

* * *

I saw him later on.

I was trudging home at the time with the cars and trucks and pedestrians passing by me without a second thought. Perhaps they all had their own problems and worries to deal with. So they would have disregarded possibility of a girl who especially sucked at suicide negotiation.

My house is past the local bookshop and a little ways beyond the graveyard on the hill. I didn't like the graveyard very much and had begged my parents to buy a new house in fear of the angry skeleton mob that would probably eat me.

It took my parents approximately three months to fully convince me that skeletons didn't have a digestive system [anymore] and would be unable to eat me.

Anyways, it was only walking past that lonely graveyard filled with mostly just victims of the war and those poor, unfortunate soldiers who fought valiantly to protect what was dear to them.

(Unlike the boy with black hair and a gray eye, sadly)

The graveyard usually was empty since nobody visited (the old visitors were likely rotting underground in the same graveyard) and nobody particularly enjoyed being audience to a couple hundreds of dead corpses underground at night. But recently someone had been putting cake and some flowers near the headstones ever so often.

I never caught him/her.

I happened to be rounding a corner when I noticed a smaller figure amongst the crowded sea of tombstones.

It was holding a plate that held a fudge cake on it, a large piece with a very large strawberry rested on the center, decorated with curls of milk chocolate. I could hardly see it, but I had good eyes so I knew exactly what it was.

The air was sweet-smelling.

But the cake alerted me that it was a student at my school; fudge cake had been the dessert that day and everybody had, at some point or any other had fought for a slice.

The figure turned around and my blood ran cold and I felt my sweat freeze along too.

The air smelled more like toxic honeysuckle now. Sickeningly sweet.

The small-statured boy I had once loved dearly and maybe-definitely a bit too much stood before me, not too far away.

He stood before small graves-three to be exact. All of them identical and with some names written out there, etched into the stone.

A red scarf he wore billowed in the wind like puffs and curls and I vaguely remembered assisting him in the knitting of it.

I felt happy for a brief moment.

The wind kicked up and blew across our faces, as if in some way to make the moment more awkward than it already happened to be.

We stood in silence before he slowly bent down, laid down the plate close to the second grave, and turned tail and sprinted across a thin pathway, overgrown by weeds. He didn't even slip on a single grave as he went.

Gone like the wind, only the scent of the cake reminded me that he had ever stood before me.

But that was fading too.

...

Coming closer to the graves that he had left, which I required to delicately step over each and every step in order to prevent knocking anything important down, I bent over and studied the graves that he had been standing close to.

The graves were clearly very old. I didn't see any names engraved onto them at first, but looking closer and squinting my eyes and straining to see...I could faintly make out small marker lines on the stone. Clearly someone didn't bother to properly etch the names and histories of these people onto the stone. Although age and weather had eroded the marker to quite an extent, I made out the letters.

The first one, the biggest contained a K-E-I-T...A... Keita. Keita Midnights. I said aloud, the name had a childlike feel when it rolled off my tongue.

But the grave was pretty old, so I could assume Keita had been at least over twenty.

The next one.

Y...U...I...

Yui. Yui Midnights. A married couple eh? I felt relieved for a moment, probably because Yui...whoever she was, did not have some sort of romantic relationship with the boy with black hair.

The last one stood a little farther away, the marker lines were hardly intelligible. I could not comprehend all of the writing, small enough already easily.

"S" I murmured to myself.

"A...Y...A...K..." What was the last letter? An A maybe?

Sayaka. Sayaka Midnights.

His sister. I realized when all the pieces somehow fit together, like a lightbulb going off suddenly and illuminating that hard-to-solve puzzle bringing the answer to light.

Sayaka Midnights. Sister and daughter.

The wind blew at my hair, it seemed to grab hold onto the mousy locks and cling tightly. Whispers of a past I never knew seemed to echo throughout the graveyard that was now even more eerie to me.

His family. I decided, it was the only logical answer and I bit my lip when I saw it.

His parents were dead all this time.

* * *

Nestled in the weeds growing close to the three graves, I spotted a flash of white and caught a glimpse of a paper note folded up and hidden in the green.

I unfolded it with my shaking hands and a bead of sweat dripped down my nose and onto the white.

Mom, dad, Sayaka-chan...I will see you soon. Promise.

Is this what dying feels like?

* * *

The day later, the boy with black hair and a gray eye didn't show.

I had expected as much, but felt a deep sense of dread settle into my stomach when all of my searching for him turned up empty.

My hopes and prayers remained unanswered when he didn't show even after school, which I spent all of the hours sick to my stomach and replaying the scene at the graveyard over and over in my head, stuck in some annoyingly-eternal replay that didn't cease to stop.

It rewound and replayed in my head so many times, I lost count. I was numb and scared.

After school I had wasted all my hope on wishing he would show up, I didn't see him.

I was desperate when I even went so far as to come to the graveyard with the desperation and my last hope that he was there.

It was empty.

* * *

A week later and he didn't come.

I cried openly in class day after day whenever I returned from the office, brokenhearted the school vice principle sighed at me in exasperation and said in her snooty voice that always scared me: "No, your friend is not in school today."

Hey, it was embarrassing enough when hardly anyone even looked my way, but for some reason-I couldn't help but recall the day I had dropped my pottery that day and he had told me it was 'unfitting to cry for someone else's sake'.

The memory burned into my mind and I was reminded of all of the moments I could have been there to say he could cry if he wanted to...to be that person who always had their shoulder free for crying on, but I didn't.

I was reminded of the 'tears he never cried' and wondered if...wherever he was now...if he regretted not being able to while he had the chance to.

With the eyes of about half of the classroom on me, either in disgust, shock, or shame/embarrassment...

...I chose to make one last effort to be a real friend and just frankly, decided that all of those emotions telling myself (and him) that it was wrong to cry could just screw off and I buried my face in my arms and wept all the tears like a leak had sprung.

I cried all the tears that had gone dry in the black-haired boy's beautiful gray eye. And the other that would remain forever a mystery.

I cried for both of us.

* * *

The next morning my temperature was normal, contrasting to my emotional state, which was a literal train wreck.

I was sick to my stomach even though I showed no flu symptoms. It wasn't even bloody flu season! But I couldn't face the judgmental crowds and blamed my sickness on 'bad sushi' and lied to my parents for the first time so I could crawl under the covers and wonder if I was in fact, dead/dying.

If so, would I see the boy with black hair and the gray eye when I passed from this cruel world?

* * *

A month later, report had reached my ears that human blood had been discovered in the art supply storage: located a little off school grounds.

A student had walked inside to retrieve extra construction paper to finish a project and was greeted with the sight of the blood-stained walls. It looked like a whole bunch of red dye packs had simultaneously gone off all of a sudden there-according to witnesses.

My throat tightened further when they said they'd do DNA tests on the blood to see whom it belonged to. I wanted to scream in agony and fear and all of that emotion I had held in even when I didn't have any more room to spare.

All I had left to do was sit and twiddle my thumbs and pray to GOD that it wasn't who I thought it belonged to.

* * *

Results came back Thursday someone with the last name Midnights, the upperclassmen said.

I felt the dam leaking open once again.

* * *

I'm wasn't too sure why all of these encouraging messages are appearing NOW of all times.

All over school bulletin, I am easily disgusted by the amount of messages flooding into the inbox after the suspicions of the black-haired boy's whereabouts were released to the public.

Tons of:

Sorry about that bro, I hope you're in a better place now.

Dude, I'm sorry about this, I hope that we're all wrong, but our thoughts are with you.

I hope you're reading a lot of good books wherever you are kiddo.

I couldn't help but wonder why he had so many friends NOW when he didn't need them anymore.

All of these people suddenly, willing to BE THERE all of a sudden when it was too late.

Angry, I slammed my computer shut and I closed my eyes, I was too distracted to work on our art project right now, a pair of incredibly sharp metal scissors lay forgotten in my hand and a piece of sticky construction paper in the other.

I took a deep breath and took in all I had seen, and left the room in a huff. Nobody tried to stop me even though I could feel my classmate's eyes on my back as I turned down the hall. I had forgotten to put away the scissors so I held onto them tightly.

Anger and so many different emotions were flooding my brain, I could feel them popcorning in burst in my head.

With no where to turn, I walked past the many classrooms and down the narrow hallways I had once walked with the black-haired boy once upon a long time ago.

A melancholy feeling swam throughout my veins and I wondered if I had taken action-would he be walking with me now?

It certainly didn't help that with every step, I could hear his snippy and occasionally hardened tone bouncing off the walls.

I didn't stop walking for a very long time. I could have sworn I hadn't left school grounds, but before I knew it: I was far from where I had started, I looked around to see that I had somehow spirited away to the graveyard I had been not so long ago. I panted for breath when my exhaust finally caught up to me, an eerie feel arrived once more and I stood straight once more and looked for the three graves with their eroded marker lines.

Suddenly, about four years worth of memories I had stored inside my heart when I 'stopped loving' him spilled out of me.

"You are annoying."

"Crying does not help anyone."

"I have no reason left to stay here."

"Hey, I want you to know that: you are a special person. To me. You always dropped everything in order to make sure I was ok. Please stay..."

"This is Nakamura-san, my friend."

I treasured these words once.

I loved him. I loved a questionably, broken and scarred boy with his long black hair and his gray eye that was empty of emotion and will to survive. I loved him more than anything; when I said I didn't any longer, I found the room in my heart once more.

My feelings were never answered properly. Answers I wanted but never got. I could fill up an eternity with the tears and the heartache I shed on that black-haired boy's behalf.

I ruined myself for him.

Ruined myself trying too hard for a one-sided love that never came true.

And even though my face looks normal and I do find myself somewhat attractive, I am mangled and torn and spilling out onto the cold earth in puddles of a rubies and carmine. I'm in pieces over one boy who managed to tear me far from my old world where I could never come back.

So dearly I held them inside of my heart. I tried. I really did. With all of the love and all of the hope I could muster and I prayed. Prayed to god himself that I would get an answer of the sorts.

But even with that absurdly large and overrated amount of prayers unanswered, I fell short.

I never did get to know his real name even.

I should have hated him, hated him so.

I could have. But I didn't.

Instead, I poured what was left of me into loving him even more, even when I felt I could not store another ounce of love-I made room yet again.

Sickeningly sweet it was, I could nearly feel the days that I watched him from afar, his hair fluttering in small waves and spiked strands and with mangled wings he would take flight.

I watched him break.

I watched all of this from behind, lagging far away where I could never reach him.

And that alone brought a bought of hysterical laughter from somewhere deep within me, someplace I didn't know existed opened up and I laughed hysterically with all of the shame and regret of it all dripping from me at that moment I realized I would never be put together again.

And I sat there, with nothing more left to ponder over; I am left sitting there with nothing else to go on and I know just how painful it will be to return to my old life.

I'm too far in.

And sitting on the grass with tears already pooling in my eyes I sit alone and with no one. The graves before me seem to weep alongside me.

The scissors feel heavy in my hand-in fact, I just remembered I was holding them.

An idea popped into my head: an outrageously sad one, but I think it's the least painful option. My escape from this mess.

And yes, I can hear my conscience (damn that thing) screaming, pleadingly to stop whatever I'm about to do loudly that it's deafening. The weight of the small object seemed to grow heavier and a weariness in my stomach seems to lift along with my hands, gripping the thing tightly.

The grass rustles beneath me, the sky seems clear for the first time ever since meeting the black-haired boy. The earth itself is acknowledging me for the first and last time.

I clutched the scissors tighter, a gleam coming off of their pointed edges and catching my reflection. I have tears rolling down my face; I don't feel the warm water drip.

I held the scissors a few inches from my chest, pointed. My hands shake.

"Hey, let's meet again there shall we?" I said with a smile stretched out from ear or ear.

My hands don't shake anymore. I guess that's good.

And with that, I plunge the scissors deep.

* * *

I don't feel the death blow.

It slides directly inside of me, smoothly and silently.

I can hear my heartbeat slow along with time itself and I wonder briefly if I've made a mistake.

But no, I shake the thoughts.

I've never been so sure in my life.

And my smile remains even as I fall forward, even when I expected the grass and earth to catch me.

I land against the middle grave with my hand slung over the smaller one, I can feel something warm drip onto it.

My smile doesn't waver, I'm afraid.

It widens too.

I cannot even feel the object, now lodged within my heart, piercing.

And I don't feel it all coming out, in a crimson sea of red that cascades out of me and the sky becomes farther and farther away.

The sun is dying.

I feel it fading away. Slowly.

Definitely.

My insides are leaking out of me, every last drop to be drained.

The metal scissors lay lodged in my chest of course, yet I can't feel it.

And I can feel everything fading away from where I lay.

I love you.

I can barely croak. I'm not even sure if I've opened my mouth.

But I know it's true. That's enough for me.

* * *

Epilogue:

I guess the stories are true, paradise as it may be-there are still some times I think I'm still on earth.

There aren't exactly golden gates and jeweled houses and pearly shingled roofs. There aren't really what you'd call 'angels'. It's pretty normal. I'm glad.

I really and truly am because I kinda think all of that stuff would be really flashy.

Anyways, I had spent a lot of time going around and talking to people. I know how a lot of 'em died now at least. Currently I've been wandering to nowhere. I'm not sure where the heck I'm headed, but I'm walking.

Just walking. I haven't got anywhere in particular to go, but I guess that's the fun of it.

* * *

Wow. I didn't know I'd end up at the seashore.

But here I am.

I stand here, all of it seems undeniably real and I'm shocked. It's not that kind of touristy beach with billions of people crowded around like the kind on earth.

No, it's pristine and peaceful, the roar of the waves echoing in my ears. A salty smell touches up to me and I can't help but admire the scene in front of me. The sand is smooth and soft and covers the ground for what appears to be miles in a blanket of yellow. The sea is a deep blue color and foamy ripples form one after the other. But despite the beauty, I feel somewhat...melancholy? The sky is rather cloudy and the sun does not peek out, unlike every other place I've been.

I take a deep breath of the ocean's salty air.

"Huh?" A little farther off, it's less than a hundred feet away, there's a small ledge above the water. Not too high above.

There's a path that leads up to it too. It's crusted with dirt and sand and rocks.

But right smack-dab on the ledge, is a small cottage. A tiny house that could scarcely fit about four. It's only one story high and looks terribly cozy. I could see the milky-white walls slightly covered in ivy and green grass growing around it. A red roof covers the whole thing, a chimney protruding out of it.

A window is visible from where I stand.

My brown hair blows in the wind and I stare: entranced by the house that seems more like an illusion brought on by the salty air and the ocean ripples.

What's more, perched on the ledge, is a small figure, standing there. I can tell only that much from what my eyes tell me, I squint to see it better.

But instead, I peel off my shoes and make my way to the ledge. I climb up the rocks with slight difficulty and manage to get up.

The figure is clearly a person, very small I can see, he/she is wearing a red hood and cloak, and a very long white shirt. I wonder if it's a dress or not, but I think he/she is wearing those long pants that go a few inches above the ankles.

(Frankly I haven't ever seen a BOY with such thin legs but I guess there's a first time for everything).

He/she isn't wearing any shoes and is throwing rocks into the ocean.

"Excuse me, can I ask what you're doing?" I ask, approaching the person, the waves are lapping around the rocks and I fear that they will sweep me away once the ride rises.

"Do not worry, the waves never reach high enough to do that." A rather feminine voice twitters.

I look up in surprise and realize it was the boy/girl that said it, my worries slightly dispel. But huh. Something about the voice is oddly familiar and I can almost feel some familiarity in it, and studying the back of his/her head, I walk up to the side of the person, attempting to glimpse his/her face.

Not that that helped, I couldn't see it very well because of the large hood, but I had soon found myself staring upon a very girly face with porcelain-white skin and long bangs that covered the side of his/her face. A streak of blue tinted the side of his/her hair. An almost obsidian-colored eye stared at me, meeting my own green ones.

That eye reminded me slightly, with a start...of the boy from back home.

A melancholy twinge came from somewhere in my throat and it hurt to look at him. (Speaking of the black-haired boy, I hadn't seen him yet).

The waves splashed on the rocks, sending a salty spray right up at us, like a fountain that momentarily caught the sun's light. Not that there was any sun, actually.

Splash! A small, jagged rock hit the water with the smallest splash.

A sigh emitted from the figure's mouth. His/her lips moved and the sound seemed to come afterwards somehow.

"I am a male, thank you."

Ok then. My heart skipped a beat when his voice rang out, shrilly again.

Even though it sounded just a little annoyed and maybe a little put off. Yep, more and more like that black-haired boy every second.

He sighs and peeks back his hood, the fabric falls back and I draw in a breath.

His hair was spiked slightly and tied back in a small ponytail, his visible eye gleamed and glinted. I nearly choked on my own spit as I saw the absolute perfect resemblance.

He has the exact same look of displeasure that I was too used to seeing on my old friend's face.

But, I didn't point it out suddenly, and instead, I settle for:

"So, how'd you die?" Is what I ask.

His face doesn't seem to change, but he lets out a sigh when he says it:

"I am not dead, I am visiting. If you can believe it."

Splash!

Another rock hits the water.

"Visiting?" I croak, I feel somewhat sad to hear it.

"Yes. Visiting. Long story."

Splash!

I nod and don't press any further. I let out a sigh that is caught in the breeze, "how 'bout you?" He asks, not looking at me straight to the face. I'm not sure he even said anything; the moment I turn around, he is reaching down to pick up another rock.

I answer anyways: "Suicide." I reply without any hesitation.

But soon after I open my mouth I feel guilty about saying it. He turns and looks at me directly this time, his eye latches onto my own and I can feel him staring at my soul-my secrets. And I can feel him replaying my life like a record over and over again.

His cloak rustles in the wind, it tents out behind him, and my hair does too. It feels much shorter than when I was alive.

His gaze is hard and emotionless at first, empty and bland, but I hold my gaze. Soon his expression softens a smidgen.

He studies me lighter now, his gaze is more like a soft gray rather than the ironed obsidian orb that pinned me down.

"I see...well then I am sorry about that then." He whispers, his tone is quiet.

The boy seems to be contemplating something, it shows on his face. His beautiful face. His upper lip twitches as he opens his mouth to speak.

"T-that was my fault then? Yeah, I guess...it was my fault, now you are here. You traded away your future for this?"

Splash! A small rock skims the surface slightly.

"What a waste."

Splash! Another one follows it, not an inch off its original mark.

"I apologize, I never was honest with you."

Splash! A final one breaks the surface and sinks below the foamy, white waves.

Wait, I frown. "So that means..." I say, incredulously.

The pieces fall together at once. Why he never had, or will have a place here...what happened...

"Blackstar." He says quickly, cutting me off instantly when he notices I am about to say something. "Eh?" I squeak, that was random. "Blackstar. That is what my name is-not my real one, but I suppose if I see you again, you may call me that." Confusion clouds my mind now, "But...if it's not your real one...why refer to yourself...?"

"Goodbye Asuka-san." He says, his tone is cold and dripping ice once more.

Like the barrier built up once more.

He clutches a final rock, which he folds into his thin, bony hand and take my own in his other.

He presses the rock into my hand and folds my fingers over it, I notice for the first time...how small his hands are, I feel protective of him for the hundredth, billionth time and a warm feel bleeds through my chest.

He peels away his cloak and pushes it towards me, his face is red now, a brilliant contrast to his pale complexion.

He seems to be fighting for words and seemingly decides on some:

"So you do not forget."

"Oh, and please do come by one day." Is all he says.

All he says before turning around, and walking towards the small house ahead.

The small house covered in ivy.

The rock is smooth and shiny and glints with all the colors imaginable, it seems to wink at me.

He's drifting away once more, I know now, I'm strong enough-I can probably tell him to wait, I can somehow come back into his life once more...I can make things the way they were...

But...I don't...I do not run after him and I don't try to bring back what we once had. I know it's better now, I have lived out my place in his life completely, my role is done now. And I am happy with what I have. I won't try to change anything and I certainly won't sweep his world from under his feet...if wouldn't be fair.

Instead, I glance up to the sky and wonder how there can possibly be a dampness behind my eyes, but I let my tears fall anyways because I know that I'm not crying for him right now actually, he can do it himself now.

I know that he's probably crying too.

I stare upwards and the sun peeks out behind the clouds for the first time in a long time.

It feels refreshing and I let the sunlight hit my face, my last one-carat tear drips down my face sparking like a diamond and lands in the ocean.

I smile and say nothing absolutely nothing.

What more is there to say?

* * *

Two days later...

I'm walking again, I haven't a clue where I'm off to now, but I think it'll be alright. Wherever I do end up.

I'm currently wearing the cloak right now, even though it's several sizes too small and I've been getting a lot of odd looks, I know that I'll treasure it forever. Along with the rock. Yeah, I put it on a necklace.

Walking on all by myself, I have a hell lotta time on my hands and wonder what my next plans are. All the while, I seriously consider cutting my hair and getting some new clothes.

I'm not a little girl anyways.

But as I contemplate my new future, filled to the brim with endless possibilities I can't help but allow my mind to drift over to 'Blackstar'.

"Hey, I never knew your real name...but...I guess that's trivial now...I'll never know-"

"Huh?"

Along the stitching of the cloak, my eyes fall onto a set of small letters sewn onto the fabric.

Curiously, I read them carefully.

It's a freakishly long name.

"...oh. I guess I got my wish..." I think. I laugh with the thought of it, writing name tags must be a living hell for him.

A vow. I know my next plans all of a sudden, it's crystal clear.

"Well then...Brendan Anthana...what? Ah, screw it..."

I try again.

"Brendan Midnights...I promise we'll meet again."

* * *

Meanwhile, a hopeful boy with black hair and a single gray eye that glittered and shone bright as a star smiles.

Fin

* * *

**Blackstar: "Oh, and Asuka-san, it's Brendan Anthanasius Entheofushia Amarantha Evangelus Midnights. "**

**Blackstar: "Stupid"**

**Asuka: "...That's literally the most long-ass name I've ever heard in my life."**

**Blackstar: "I cannot believe it, you are so stupid!"**

**Asuka: "At least if I were to sit on a penny, my legs wouldn't fall over the side."**

**Blackstar: "Screw you. At least I am not dead."**

**Asuka: "..."**

**...**

**A/N:**

**Sorry about that slow update! **

**So, I guess I need to explain some of this story, it originally came to life over a discussion with a friend, over a boy with schizophrenia (split-personality in his case) and how he would struggle with abuse and having to live with two sides with him, the stronger and more stable part of him that is also that dry-eyed, indifferent person. And his real personality, which is more unstable, and emotional and prone to heartbreak; is kinder and more good-spirited. It has ties to this story (don't worry) and I suppose it kind of comes together in the end of it. But, she (the friend) talked about him having some love interest who tries to unravel his story to get to know him better, that's how Asuka came to life. I realize this is sadder than my usual genre, I wanted to try something new. (and I will make mention of the original DR/SDR2 characters in later chapters).**

* * *

**Review? **


	5. Culebra and the Saintess of Shadow

**Sorry about the slow update! I've had a lot of schoolwork for some reason...but it's done! Presenting...**

Culebra.

That was the rumored alias of the infamous street-rat Kasai Ichijó.

A 13-year-old thief was indeed, a very interesting tale to tell. One that had run away from home and had joined a gang seemed like a terribly good story to tell; true stories weren't his genre.

Kasai thought, frustrated as he threw aside his pen. It landed with a clatter on the ground a few feet away.

For a split second, he felt somewhat bad for the pen-having its wielder's frustration taken out on it so often and leaned down to pick it up. He had been grumpy for the past few days. Ever since he had gone on a temporary leave from his gang, he had been camping out near the local convenience store, sleeping at the gas station and eating rice crackers and cheap cup noodles. He had once written a story about a girl who had run away from home after her parents were killed and had lived the same way for a year in a K-mart or a Walmart or something.

Kasai didn't know how the hell that was even possible.

One week and his stomach growled pitifully as he forced down cheap fried foods stuffed with MSG and empty calories.

_I need to get out of here_. He thought for the hundredth time, the whole reason he had even bothered to stake out, was because notice of a giant street bike gang had disbanded recently, so their old hideout was perfectly vulnerable and susceptible for any takeovers. Practically all of the gangs in the area had their sights set on the place and were already becoming even more violent to fight over the place. Animosity between gangs had been bad, but things had skyrocketed since news had hit the streets.

The problem was, they had no clue where it was.

Everyone was looking for it; and so was he, having had volunteered to go on a giant hideout hunting, assuming it would be easy...

...Kasai Ichijó was spending his weekend trying to thaw frozen corndogs in the gas station sink.

Ok, it was better than most of the food he ate, but still...

A memory of the pasty 'porridge' his mother fed him (mashed stale bread and water) almost daily came to mind, bringing a cringe from the boy.

Escape from that place had been nothing short of an outright miracle on his part. Memories of being hit and stabbed no less, haunted his dreams ever so often. He remembered being kept inside a ferret cage constantly, straining his back and eventually stunting his growth. He remembered being forced to cut his own hair and take care of himself, the reason he looked like a ratty little punk. Writing was his only friend. His only escape of reality.

And he was NOT going to lose that.

Kasai shook his head frantically. Why am I remembering this now?

That and been so long ago, and he had made the best of it. His small stature had brought, speed and evasiveness, his solitude made him a quicker thinker, books and the occasional radio talk made him more street-smart.

He was the thieving Culebra of Japan.

His gang meant everything to him; he wasn't going to let it down.

A car passed by, spraying dirt into the air, it's tires screeching against the asphalt, Kasai had become accustomed to the sound from his nights on the street.

The sky was gray and fitting for his mood; not any clearer.

Rolling over on his back, he retained his perch on the old wooden bench and decided to worry about the thousands of splinters he would pick out of his spine some other time.

...

Night didn't come for several hours sadly, Kasai went out a few times and entered a couple apartment complexes in just a span of 2 hours and returned to the bench later on with his pockets filled with stolen candy and a phone with a pink case.

He spend another hour and a half unwrapping his collection of two dozen hard candies and eating them. "Ok, I don't know where I'm gonna go now." He mumbled, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a tattered document, messy red marks scrawled over the backside. He had stolen a briefcase and made off with a business paper. It's purpose had little to do with expansions to the Future Foundation and the clumsy teenaged boy he stole it from.

Instead, the blank back held a map, a poorly written-seeming one, but the details were eerily accurate and each corner within a radius of 3 miles had been mapped to perfection. Even the dumpsters and the indents on the road were visible.

Kasai had no artist talent, but he had perfect memory.

He scribbled down a new area on the corner of the paper and wrote Apartment Complexes down.

So far, he hadn't located the hideout or anything leading to it in that matter, he had however, discovered 15 different gift shops that sold keychains. "It's not perfect...yet." He noted, staring at the blank areas he had not mapped. Previously, he had made two different sheets that mapped out an area farther north.

But it would take forever to map out even a single city, and Kasai and his gang didn't have forever.

Tch, at this rate, I'll be 50 by the time I map out even a fourth of Tokyo. He thought angrily, folding his arms over his chest and unfolding them. Swinging his legs off of the bench he sat on, which didn't quite touch the ground-damned shortness.

It felt good to act childlike for once though, he thought staring down at his bone-thin legs dangle from the bench, inches off the ground. Back at his gang, he was often expected to adapt a more adult-like, mature persona in order to survive. Childish and compassion didn't sit well in the real world.

"And now my gang needs ME. What do I do now?"

The boy crinkled his forehead as he pondered what exactly he would do, ideas were usually quick to spring into his sharp mind, but this was just ridiculous.

His mind was blank-"Wait!" Kasai jolted upright, something sprang to mind in a moment of sheer, miraculous clarity.

"Ugh." He groaned, he had just remembered SOMEONE he could turn to for help, but it wasn't as if this person would be so willing.

He remembered the last time he had gone to seek assistance from THAT ONE, he wound up paying quite a price and had lost a lot of sweat and energy; he still did end up getting more than what he bargained for in the end.

THAT ONE was terribly good at their job after all. Taking on those jobs'll make 'em rich...  
But THAT ONE was tricky and very deceitful. Kasai often had to hold onto his valuables whenever he went to see them, because they often ended up snatched. Imagine: the master thief getting stolen from like a mere, clueless touristy fellow he himself often pick-pocketed.

I don't wanna, but I have no choice. Kasai thought hesitantly, grabbing his paper and stuffing it in his pocket.

"I have enough money, I think..."  
...

Tokyo wasn't the nicest place at nighttime as it could have been, Kasai knew all to well about the disappearances that had been occurring lately.

He wasn't very interested in becoming the next target, so he took even more extreme caution at night. The kidnappings had been driving the Future Foundation people crazy, they had been searching for weeks and hadn't turned up any leads. Kasai was pretty convinced that they were all useless as long as hope was still remaining in the world and everything still appeared to be normal. He had seen some of their best detectives and investigators find anything new.

But, Kasai knew that to find something, they would need to look beyond their usual resources, and he doubted they would ever get enough sense to do THAT.

He had left the gas station area and had passed by a few different streets filled with the flashing lights and nighttime bustle of Tokyo.

He was crossing over to a more 'mellowed' area of the busy city where not to many people lived. There were a few apartment complexes there; not a lot of them occupied.

He came up to a small building that looked abandoned at first glance-second and third too...but he knew better.

It was a small building that appeared to be a small abandoned store of the sorts, graffiti covered the walls and the cement was cracked and powdery. Weeds grew from every direction and added more to the 'unfriendly' look.

The windows were boarded shut and so was a small doorway, blocked by several uneven planks of splintery wood. Kasai groaned when he saw that they were up AGAIN. Seriously, they were never going to get any customers with all that boarding up and locking out. But then again, maybe that was for the greater good. Kasai grunted and came up to the door, jumping over thick weeds blocking the walkway. Although it took a while, somehow Kasai managed to scrape away the boards and pull open the door.

A loud creak could be heard and he cringed at the sound, he didn't need anyone knowing he was there right away.

Crossing over the damp and dusty floor, he carefully made his way through the room, feeling his way around.

Luckily, he had good eyesight and senses so he wasn't tripping over every scrap of discarded metal messily thrown onto the ground, or any wooden planks with every step.

Eventually, after navigating enough around the dilapidated store, his foot hit moldy wood instead of metal flooring.

Bingo.

Kasai bent down and grabbed the softened wood, the splinters prickled both of his hands but he clutched it tightly and yanked it as hard as he could, the floorboards flew upward and landed with a thump on the ground a few feet away, Kasai faintly heard mice scrambling away from the impact.

"Gross." He muttered to himself, now that the wood was gone, a large hole remained.

Inside, a small emergency escape ladder went down, down. A small metal pit that led to wherever. Kasai probably should have been cautious climbing down, but he knew better. The lack of light gave the impression of a deep pit; in reality, it was more like seven or eight feet down.

He clutched the small coin purse he had packed along, feeling the soft leather crease in between his iron tight grasp and once more, prayed he had brought enough money...and then jumped down.

* * *

He landed with a loud thud that echoed across the room as soon as his feet met with the cement.

And just like that, the passageway lit up instantly, slightly dim lights illuminating the utter darkness, concrete walls and steel plates stapled to them were immediately visible and very imposing. Kasai frowned in distaste at the decor THEY had set up. The lights on the ceiling were badly cracked and several moths flocked around them, several more dead on the floor.

Well, here goes nothing.

He took his first step on the concrete and flinched the second a loud clap echoed off the walls.

* * *

Kasai didn't know how long he had been walking, he shoved his hands into his red sweatshirt that he had swiped off of the second-hand store someplace in a mall. The fabric itched and scratched his sweaty palms and were very uncomfortable to his standards. "I need a new sweatshirt." Kasai grumbled under his breath, annoyed upon remembering that the hood didn't even go all the way over his head.

He hardly realized when the long pathway came to an abrupt end and the concrete switched over to hard steel and the lighting improved and he ran smack dab into a steel door plastered with crayon drawings that looked a cut above any three-year-old's work.

"Oh, I'm here." He grumbled. "Perfect."

The steel door brought back multiple horrible memories of being scammed and mocked by THEM repeated times again and again and having his belonging stolen. HIM. Ugh, Kasai could see the outline of several crayon scribbles on the paper taped to the door clearer than ever. After all, he did MAKE some of those horrible drawings that THEY had been jerkish enough to actually put them up. He glared fiercely at the messy and shaky drawing of a red boat that bore a pair of creamy whitish wings on them, uneven, but still a pair of Angel wings. Angel wings. On a boat. He glared at it with his icy pale eyes. He kicked at it for effect and the door cracked open, the sound of metal scraping the floor screaming.

Kasai Ichijó jumped back a good few feet when the door clanged against the other side of the wall in surprise, but quickly regained his wits.

He took in a deep breath and took a shaky step inside of the dark void awaiting him. The moment his foot touched the floor, a voice rang out in the dark:

"Ichijó." It said in an icy, bemused tone. It sounded like half a growl of contempt and half snicker of amusement. A girl.

Kasai grumbled a string of curses under his breath at the familiar condescending tone.

"Madoka."

* * *

Madoka Maehara was a spiteful, hateful snake. In all honesty, she was just cruelty and spite in solid form. Dark and mysterious. She lived up to her nickname: The Saintess of Shadow.

As far as Kasai thought at least.

He knew Madoka well enough from several previous jobs to understand her character.

She was very demanding and very petty, seeing that she only took cases that paid incredibly well and not just in hard cash.

No, she had enough of THAT. Madoka was just really good at, as well as enjoyed: manipulating people, she was the expert at that. Maybe she purely liked seeing the suffering of another individual, or maybe she was just demented or broken on the inside; Kasai knew easily she was bad news.

Bad, bad news. He hated her, and she hated him with an equal-no, perhaps double, triple, quadruple amount of spitefulness. And that made them click in some sort of way, some mutual respect that reminded them constantly and to that day that they were supposed to hate each other. But they did have their moments occasionally.

Nooooo, I've never had something between me and her. Not possible. Which was a lie of course, he remembered clear as day.

...

(They had taken a job someplace together in Wales tag-team a year ago, at her villa (he assumed she in no way, had rightful ownership...the girl was ELEVEN). And she and him just sat and waited by the bay in some sort of twisted eternal vacation, or getaway from reality (or so he assumed.) she brought him an ice cream bar that was already part melted when he received it; he ate it anyways to avoid hurting her feelings, and watched as the creamy sweet mixture dripped down his fingers and mouth, pearly white tainted slowly dark brownish-black with dark chocolate crumbs.

And he taught her to string a hook and catch fish (when she asked how he knew how to do it, he replied that being homeless at 7 taught a kid a lot of important stuff, she didn't ask again). And he watched as she whooped in victory and gloated her catching of a gigantic catfish or maybe something else. Kasai never really bothered to learn the names of these things.

They threw it back to the ocean and watched it vanish under the sparkly waves that glittered blue and green underneath the sun rays that danced over the surface in a fickle sort of way.

It was pretty fun, and he had broken his arms, as well as a large chunk of his wide-fitting pride along the way after she had urged him to steal a gold watch from a wealthy business owner to pay off some unannounced debt she had. Why did he feel sorry for her again? Maybe it was because she brought him ice cream...He had run into multiple guard dogs and had run all the way to a cliff that led to the ocean, hoping not to get eaten. That wasn't how he injured his arms though.

He jumped and landed in the ocean with a smack, and nearly skewered his nimble and fit little body on the rocks. And he even sank deep, deep down and nearly drowned himself thanks to a heavy shirt he had packed along and had mistakenly worn.

His arms were still intact.

He was then rescued by Madoka when she passed by the shore dressed in her pale white sundress that stuck to her thin frame and carrying her pair of creamy white sandals that HE himself had bought for her the day before at some crappy kiosk located at the edge of the bay.

She carried a sun hat underneath one pale arm that looked eerily similar to powdered milk and looked utterly ridiculous in her bright clothes with her pale and sickly complexion and thick, bushy, below-knee-length black hair. Her eyes were also sunken and dark so she looked very out of place. (Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned that when she pulled him up from underwater and brought him back to earth by hitting him over the head) because when he did let the words slip by, she gave him a punch so hard, the whole world spun and stars exploded above his head. And then she twisted both of his arms behind his back. She stood up abruptly and told him to go to hell for all she cared and then marched off. He thought she was wiping her eyes, but he never knew with Madoka (which wasn't even her real name actually).

...

"So, I see you've come again for my help? I'm pretty sure you're aware of the price of my assistance..." She said distractedly, her figure became more visible in the darkness when Kasai's vision adjusted to the musty blackness. She hadn't changed at all. Well, he had just seen her a month back and had helped her tote groceries only to realize she had stolen his watch.

Her hair was bushy and spiky as ever, her eyes seemed even more empty, and her skin still pale and grayish as ever. She STILL looked to have no soul.

"Yes Madoka." Kasai grumbled, he was forced to listen to the entire speech every time he came around.

"And I have money." He said, when she started to open her mouth. Kasai held out his small coin purse for her to see. Madoka narrowed her already-beady eyes at the small amount of wadded up cash. "I've also accumulated several other stolen items you may enjoy..." He quickly added.

He wasn't so confident anymore. If she didn't take up the offer...

Luckily, Madoka also had a knack for surprising people when they least expected it...sort of like how one may observe the clock's hand with the most intent to catch the movement of the hand, but of course it never does until we grow bored and look away.

"I'll take it." Madoka said confidently, she stood up from her chair. "Wh-wh-what?" Kasai stammered, he wasn't fond of stammering and was usually straightforward but he didn't expect her to take it so...eagerly...

Kasai got over his initial shock right away and remembered exactly the schemes Madoka Maehara could plot under your nose. "Why? I'm pretty sure the last time I went for your help...you wanted like...a couple thousand in cash and a piece of jewelry."

She shook her head. "Not this time, Ichijó...maybe I would charge you a lot more...but this'll do for now; I'm pretty desperate...I'll help you find your secret base." Now, Kasai usually was an expert at telling when people were sincere or not, and Madoka's tone sounded very sincere and very honest this time. She clearly wasn't winding him around her finger like always. Huh.

He was so happy, he didn't even mention how she even knew about the secret base.

"Great! So we can get start-" Madoka held up a bony finger in the air to silence him, or interrupt him. "Not so fast Ichijó." She snapped.

"For this...I don't want your money..."

Kasai let out a small little gulp and shrank back a little bit. _I knew it._ He thought bitterly.

"I want your cooperation." She finished with a little flourish, she looked him in the eye with those beady, dark eyes of hers with a gleam of a challenge. "W-what?!" Kasai squeaked indignantly. This was new, Madoka never, ever let anyone help her on her jobs, saying that they'd only get in the way.

She took a step in his direction, which influenced Kasai to take a shaky step back. "Tch." Madoka hissed under her breath, and in an instant, her image flickered and before he knew it, she was right next to him, her face inches away from his shoulder, she was tiny...but remarkably fast on her feet.

Taking a deep, raspy breath, she stood up on her toes and whispered something that seemed like a string of useless words in his ear, her breath cold on his neck.

"Listen here Ichijó, something's about to happen in this place...maybe the whole nation...even the world...something BIG. And it's fast approachin' us. Yep, real fast too, first the better-prepared will sense it, and eventually...humanity will be hidin' in their holes and their nooks and crannies that give off their false sense of security."

"And soon? Only those brave enough will be left over to face it. Infection and disease will spread and soon no one will be left. But y'know something?" She smirked.

"I'll still be there, and not by choice. But because I've made some BAD choices three years ago, and now I'm gonna pay for it like I promised," Kasai almost withdrew in confusion. Now she's talking nonsense?

"There will be others, and that may not be enough to stop what's comin' ..."

"So," she said louder, drawing back and taking a few steps back, the clack of her low-heeled shoes bounced off the walls, water dripped from the ceiling. And with that, Madoka Maehara wheeled around and stuck her hand out. Kasai jumped back a few feet at the sudden gesture and stared in shock at her outstretched hand. "I want your help...your cooperation...please, Kasai. It's the only way I know."

Kasai's eyeballs didn't fall out then like he expected. Really, who ever heard of Madoka actually begging someone for help, sure...he'd envisioned the moment she genuinely needed him; he didn't enjoy it as much as he assumed he would. It didn't give him any sense of pride or power and he told her to stop begging.

Kasai Ichijó took in a deep breath, weighing his options silently. What other choice did he have? "I'll help you." Madoka's face suddenly twisted into a tight smile that was indeed, genuine...but a little crooked, like she wasn't used to making the face. But he didn't grab her hand just then.

"But, I want something more," he nodded, he nearly felt the danger of it in the air. He never asked Madoka for more; often he got even LESS than what he bargained for.

She raised a curious eyebrow.

But the day was full of surprises. "I trust you, believe it or not, and I want you to trust me too. So you'll tell me who you are and don't lie this time, I used to think you were a golfball salesperson for crying out loud! I want you to trust me like I do. So, when the deed is done, I want you to tell me your name."

He announced bravely, hardly noticing how his voice was shaking as well as his hands, that were clammy and cold with sweat.

Madoka glared at him venomously. He almost regretted speaking at all, but held his head up. "You know what I said." He retorted. Madoka groaned in exasperation and annoyance and actually showed more childishness than ever when she stomped her foot on the ground. "You don't get it! It's not so simple!" "Yes it is!" He said back, louder. That seemed to astonish her back into submission-she didn't protest. "Fine."

Kasai grinned widely at the quiet word she uttered, feeling like he had one this battle for once.

"Deal then, swear it! Ok? You'd better promise to." He said cheerfully, holding out an extended pinky finger. Madoka frowned and looked like she was going to mention how childish he was being as always, but then remembered her prior outburst and turned an unflattering shade of pink on her white face, she tugged on a strand of dark wavy hair roughly but eventually just grumbled and wrapped her pinky around his.

Kasai noticed for the first time how small it was compared to his.

"So tell me, what's going on?"

* * *

Madoka Maehara was definitely unpredictable...she led him through a different passageway located on the right wall of the small room, just behind a small bookshelf stocked full with musty and rotting books that probably held countless tales and myths and other everyday occurrences that Madoka didn't pay attention to.

He shuddered as a rat scrambled from behind the rotten and damp wood and into the darkness.

She led him through a steel door covered in scrapes and scratches etched out onto it and after crawling through a small portion of dirt, they came out in an even smaller (but better lit) room that looks more like it belongs to a patient in an insane asylum with padded walls that are clearly moth-eaten and moss growing on the cracks.

Kasai assumed that it HAD once housed some mentally-ill nobody.

Madoka stood up and brushed her long pleated skirt free of dust before pulling up a small red still (also moth-eaten) from a tiny coffee table sitting in the corner.

A little book-light illuminated the corner.

Moths flocked around the light hungrily and mindlessly as if trying to achieve some sort of connection with the brightness and blinding rays streaming from the bulb.

They look trapped in Kasai's eyes and he unintentionally laughed at the sight.

But otherwise, the room was utterly disgusting. Not really 'a sight for sore eyes' as his old high-school friend from second grade used to say-if anything, the whole image would make someone's eyes even MORE sore.

"Make yourself at home." Madoka cackled from the corner in the room, her tone was condescending and sarcastic, but wasn't it always?

"Thanks." Kasai grumbled before slowly padding across the squishy floor to get to her, he pulled out another identical stool and brushing it off cautiously before sitting down.

"So?" Was the first thing he asked. Madoka raised an eyebrow in curiosity, her hands were folded in front of her, in a tight grip that looked like it would take a pair of pliers to pry apart.

"Oh, I assume you want an explanation now?" She sighed.

Kasai gave her a serious look, her dark eyes met with his icy blue ones. Madoka nearly looked panicked for a brief millisecond, before her expression shifted back to normal. She unfolded her hands and started fiddling with her jagged nails as if hoping some sort of diversion would fall from the sky.

(She would soon get her wish).

"Hey, did you see the boat painting that you made? It sure brings back memories..." She quipped, earning a stern glance from Kasai.

Not now. His look seemed to radiate. Madoka sensed it too and let out another sigh, this one was of resignation though.

"Fine." Madoka scoffed, she looked back and forth at the moldy walls nervously and then leaned in as if someone was going to miraculously eavesdrop on their conversation.

Her snooty tone dropped down to a hard-to-detect whisper.

"Listen, somethin' is gonna happen to this place. In around a year, there'll be something that'll change EVERYTHING. Lives'll be lost, the death count will be huge, it'd be a miracle to even survive a day into it..."

Kasai glared at her annoyed, "Um, explain what this is about?! What's even going to happen?!"

She shot back an almost electrical state of utter poison, her eyes narrowed farther. "Patience." She hissed.

Kasai lifted his hands in defense.

"Look, point is...there won't be a whole lotta survivors..." She finished, there didn't seem like any point in trying to get answers from her.

"That's not helping!" Kasai yelled, a little louder...his patience was wearing thinner by the second. He was utterly sick of Madoka being all secretive (he didn't even know where she came from, who her family was, he didn't even know her real name!)

Madoka slammed her hands down on the table so hard, the smallest crack in the old wood appeared.

"I didn't sign up to be interrogated by a little-" she started to say but was then cut off by Kasai's raging next words. "I'm not interrogating you! I want answers, answers you won't give!"

He stood up from his seat-the stool fell to the ground. He pointed a thin spiny finger at her face. "I don't know if I can trust you anyways! How do I know this isn't some ruse for money!"

In a flash, Madoka had pinned him to the cushy soft wall, he didn't see it coming...in just a blur of darkness and hair, he was up against the wall...her iron grip on his shirt.

His legs dangled just a few inches off the ground, silence filled the air. Only the sound of Madoka Maehara's ragged breathing filled the stale air.

"...You'll ruin my shirt..." He croaked once collecting his wits. "Shut up." She growled, a low throaty sound.

"I don't give a damn about your shirt, I swear to God Ichijó, I'll kill you and drown you in your own blood for your ignorance." She ranted almost silently, her voice cracked a little bit, but that threat didn't exactly concern Kasai.

-except, that last part...

"Drown you in your own blood..."

And in an instant, his eyes widened like saucers and the faint memory of a strong grip wrenching his arms behind his back and pinning him down, a gleam of a sharp, blunt object brandished in the air as it came down, and the scent of blood in the air, metallic and cold-his blood. Whywhywhy was there blood again? He smelled it, he smelled it clearly on his position on the floor, his face against the hard tiles. It wasn't until a few seconds after that a sharp sting in his arm managed to register in his mind. Shrieks from the air rang out louder than gunshots and his blurry vision barely managed to catch the object going up again-

"You shouldn't have been born!"

Shit. Kasai thought as soon as he realized it was happening again.

* * *

_"Mom?" Kasai Ichijó whispered scarcely one afternoon, upon coming home from school._

_He had been greeted by the sight of the women who had raised him's shadow standing in the corner of the bathroom, he hadn't seen her downstairs like usual and had shakily combed the whole house in search of her, only to push open the upstairs bathroom door and discover such a sight._

_The women stood trembling in the corner, her back to the boy, in her hands was a sharp knife from the kitchen. It dripped with crimson red blood that streaked the blade and the handle._

_Drip. Drip. Drip. Drop._

_Kasai took a trembling step forward, one that suddenly flipped his whole unstable world from under his feet, leaving nothing to grab hold on._

_In a flash, she whirled around, face red and blotchy and utterly insane. Her eyes were no longer human any more. Her hair was a mess and her skin was covered in angry red crossmarks._

_Time stood still. Painfully still._

_Her eyes widened even further (which was somehow possible) at the sight of him, and she lifted her trembling finger up shakily._

_"You." She whispered._

_Funny how such a word could hold so much hatred and so much animosity and chagrin; it did._

_"Mom?" Kasai whimpered, he took a step backwards and slid on wet tiles and landed with a thud. He looked down to see the floor covered in blood as well._

_I'm going to die. Was his final clear thought before she came flying at him._

* * *

Madoka's Point Of View:

"..Sai..."

"...Kasai..."

"Kasai Ichijó, I command you to wake up this instant!" Madoka hollered impatiently.

Kasai's eyes flew open just like that at the command.

(Ironically though, Madoka saw this as more a reason to continue her bossiness-seeing it woke up an unconscious boy.

Also ironically, she was filled with the contempt and sudden desire to knock him back into dreamland, for not only worrying her...but for remaining unresponsive as she carried him up three flights of stairs and another small set of musty wooden stairs before reaching open air.

It had still been dark; she simply dragged him across the street and sat him down at a graffitied bench and waited hopefully (and bored) for morning.

Watching him sleep was interesting in its own way, Madoka was forced to admit.

He did hold some peacefulness on his face-typical, seeing he was only thirteen. All of his worry lines vanished and he looked calmer. Less, vigilant? Was that the word? Unfortunately, that just made him look more like...

_This_, a side of her crowed rather haughtily, _Is not exactly doing much for your revenge_. At that, Madoka let out a terribly choked laugh that sounds like a dying animal and a sarcastic human at the same time.

"I'm not ditchin' my revenge over some vagrant who floated into my services outta nowhere." She argued back, feeling rather foolish for talking to herself.)

.

Now he was awake and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, only to be met with a sharp blow to the back of his head by her hand.

"Ow!" Kasai yelped, hands reached up to rub the sore spot.

"What the hell-" he was interrupted by a bone-crushing hug on the part of Madoka. He considered fainting again because the whole day had been terribly eventful and he wasn't sure if he could take the shock.

"Idiot." Was what she whispered and felt horribly angry at the relief flooding her bones. Why was she even happy?! Maybe...maybe it was a side-effect of the guilt at what she said, she had recalled shortly after the words had slipped off her tongue that Kasai had been abused as a child...to the breaking point that he ran away after they tried to drown him. And she had just threatened to drown him in his own blood no less. But that wasn't enough of a reason to feel relieved or guilty. She didn't trouble herself for others, Madoka noticed over the past few years. She recalled bitterly of a time when she would have done ANYTHING for another individual. But those times were long since...dead.

Because she understood his pain? Of being taken advantage of? No, she normally wouldn't have given a damn about his petty troubles. Or maybe because she was just feeling kindhearted that day? Did kindhearted even exist in her widespread vocabulary?

As she clutched his shoulders tightly, she wondered why she felt so bad for the boy who had no one to live for and no one lived for him. Who belonged to no one...she knew him so well, even though she felt convinced they were strangers...

Oh. Madoka said internally, her face was still buried in his shoulder and she jerked away instantly.

Because he trusts me. And I didn't trust him. Madoka bitterly remembered.

I owe him that much, I'll tell him later...and I'll tell him my real name...and... "So how are we back at the gas station?" Kasai asked rather bluntly, staring back and forth at the area.

"Wh-wh-what?" She spluttered, at the very least...a part of her expected him to start yelling at her for what she had done to him hours back. Instead, the idiot was wondering how he was at the FREAKING gas station.

Kasai frowned and folded his arms over his chest and stood in from the bench with a grunt. "Really, I was just here..." He scratched his head.

"The...gas station's above where my base is y'know...?"

Kasai's eyes bugged and he smacked his palm to his face repeatedly. "Dammit! I had no idea, I could have just gone underground to get to you..."

"Unbelievable...I can't believe it..." He ranted angrily, pacing around in a small circle in a whiz of red and brown shaggy hair.

Madoka noted that he was acting unimaginably immature. And then, before she saw it coming, she started to laugh. Laugh. HER.

Laughing was almost foreign to her by then, why...

"Fool." She chuckled, unable to stop, she clutched her sides and doubled over. "You complete fool." She rasped, she had no clue why the heck she was even smiling.

Kasai glared. "What's so funny about that?!" He scowled. Madoka looked up and bit back another bout of ridiculous laughter, instead replacing the smile on her face with a sullen look. She failed at that, and instead, ended up with a thin line for her mouth that twitched crazily. She didn't like it.

She earned another glare from Kasai. "Shaddup." He said before aiming a punch at her shoulder. She dodged it narrowly and dissolved back into laughter.

Madoka eventually stopped laughing when a car window rolled down a few meters away and a curious face poked out. "Couples." The middle-aged man grumbled to himself before rolling up the greasy window.

She stuck her tongue out at it.

"C'mon Ichijó, we got some work to do." She smirked, turning around in a whirl and started to walk in the other direction. Her hair flew like a small cloud of smoke.

Kasai opened his mouth and closed it. "Er...why are you helping me?" He asked finally. A bit roughly.

At the very question, Madoka smiled wryly and clenched her fists tightly. Why indeed. She thought once too, the whole idea was baffling. She was used to the greed and the selfishness of humanity and did her best to adapt to it and mimic it too. Yet the second the shaggy thief wandered into her life, she started to soften up unfortunately.

But it was a matter of days, or weeks, even months...lots of time. Before she figured it out, a part of her noted that if it weren't for that one thing...she may not have carried him back.

Although Madoka realized she would have anyways.

She hated herself for it.

"Why?" Madoka echoed back.

"Well, I guess for a start...you look like my younger brother did once..."

**A/N: I dunno, I liked this character a lot. I could sort of identify with his personality and behavior. A lot. 'Madoka Maehara' is my character I guess she sort of fitted with this theme. (Laugh) Thanks to The hazel-eyed bookworm for this guy! Loved writing his story, and I will make a continuation for his story since I left some/lots of stuff unanswered. So thank you very much for all of your support here and sorry for the slow updates! I guess we'll be hearing more about Kasai and 'Madoka' (I'll give her real name eventually...) **

**-Alice **


	6. On The Road pt1

Madoka decided, for some reason, that she should interrupt her 'companion's' romance novel reading that had commenced early on in the day (and showed no visible signs of ending any time soon) by yelling into his ear:

"How can you even find that sort of crap even REMOTELY interetin'?"

Kasai Ichijó looked up to meet Madoka Maehara's eyes, his icy blue ones narrowed dangerously at the accusatory question. "What do you mean?" He replied calmly.

She had read a page from his journal behind his back a few hours before:

**I have recently begun traveling in order to fulfill the wishes of my gang and my big brother. It is very difficult to fulfill their wishes and this is no exception. I have requested the assistance of a young girl named Madoka Maehara, a seller of information, who's dream lifelong dream is to one day be convicted of homicide-plucky and very condescending she may be...she has never once lied to ME lest she retains good reason.**

She ended up reading over his shoulder constantly to make sure he wasn't writing anything bad about her. Even if he wasn't even writing at all.

Madoka snickered loudly and brushed her thick mop of hair out of the way and then plopped down next to him on the bench, disregarding the probability of splinters. "Nothing, but, romantic books suck in my opinion." She laughed.

The boy beside her rolled his eyes "Why do I feel like you force YOUR opinion onto others?"

"Huh? You suck too, Ichijó." Madoka exclaimed and punched him in the arm. She knew he was good at hiding it, but she still saw the wince on his face when her hand made contact. Wimp. Kasai was a pretty good faker, but she still saw through him. Somehow that very thought pleased her for no apparent or even valid reason. Kasai rubbed his arm with his free hand, clutching his thin paperback between three fingers and using the other two to gently rub the sore spot.

"Why do I get the idea that this has to do with earlier?" He grumbled. Madoka knew what he was talking about, previously...the two had walked into a restaurant hoping to get some food as lunch since the convenience store owner had to take a three-day leave because of some family business, they had simply gone about three or four blocks and walked into the nearest diner they could find. Some waiter with a long spindly mustache and a thin face looked down at the two of them, clearly regarding the two as 'unclean'. "Babysitting your little sister, kid?" He asked absentmindedly, passing out fold-up menus to a family.

Kasai, who remained about ten inches taller than Madoka (8 because of her notorious heeled shoes) made the dreadful mistake of snickering.

Madoka hardly came up to his shoulder and clearly disliked being referred to as 'younger'.

(Well, she DID hate it, mostly because it was correct she was technically eleven in regular years...)

Now the two of them were sitting at the bus stop bench with absolutely nothing to eat.

"Y'know, this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made such a scene at the restaurant..." Kasai said after a moment, typical. Kasai always had some excuse for everything; somehow Madoka understood where he was coming from, she thought, maybe if she had been a little bit more 'calm' when explaining to the man that they were friends and hadn't flipped that table over aaaaaaaannnnd hadn't smashed two dozen plates before the security guards came up and hauled her away...

-wait, no...part of it was that damned Kasai Ichijó's doing. When he saw the men trying to haul her away, he had miraculously decided the mature thing to do was to clamp his razor sharp incisors deep in the first guard's arm. Luckily, he walked out with only a scratch and the possibility of a chipped tooth.

"Ok, well what now?" He asked, scrunching up his face. "There aren't any good places around here. And I'm starved."

Madoka considered her options, it just so happened...there was a place that she knew about a far way off that was half-decent, but it wasn't really her preferred choice, and whether or not her plucky partner-in-crime would agree to it was another story altogether, Kasai was a pretty sincere down-to-earth kid when you got past the 'serious-guy' demeanor he so-spectacularly pulled off (well, spectacular for a young male of 13). And she knew that he was willing to take risks and pitch in when needed, however...She wasn't entirely sure he was about to jump the offer right away...

"Well..." Madoka started, and bit her lip. "I...uh...do know someplace, it's kinda far from here...but nobody's gonna question us for comin' in alone..."

She leaned in to whisper the last part, catching a teenage couple walking down the street and spotting them, they both chuckled as if possibly imagining they were just a couple of little kids with their big dreams and adventures. She hated teenagers. They drove just around in their fancy cars and uploaded pictures of their meals on social networking sites.

Madoka rolled her eyes and tugged a bit of her hair.

Kasai shrugged. "Sure, whatever." He said nonchalantly and returned his attention back to his book.

Madoka thought his fast-agreement was a little odd, but she didn't say anything that could quite possibly ruin it. Besides, he was usually very nervous and suspicious of everything.

"Great! Let's get going then! I just gotta go get somethin' from our base..." She exclaimed cheerfully, bending her mouth into her most convincing smile possible. It was hard. And it hurt her face. How did people smile again? Kasai raised an eyebrow and stared up at her out of the corner of his pale eye. "...Our?" He inquired, Madoka realized with a shock-the amusement tracing his tone. "Sh-shut up! I gotta get somethin' ok? So don't get killed while I'm gone!"

"Yup, yup. I won't. Promise, won't let nothing happen...but you'd better be careful yourself, don't want anything happening to cute-li'l-unsuspecting-you."

He waved his hand in the air as she stalked off angrily.

* * *

As soon as Madoka got back, they hit the road ahead, which was undeniably in bad shape, considering the worrisomely large amount of potholes they dodged while crossing the street.

They started off walking.

"So?" Kasai cleared his throat as a red car passed by them, throwing a large amount of dust into the air.

"Hm?" Madoka said back airily, her dark spiky hair rustled in the wind kicked up by the rushing vehicles. It seemed like all of them had some place to go in Madoka's opinion. None of them had any time or any capacity in their lives to worry about the pair of kids they near-ran over.

Not that she cared, of course.

"'Bout your brother I look like...?" He said slowly, almost cautiously. Amusing how he treated over such subjects with such care, yet was totally oblivious with others.

Madoka frowned and tossed her hair over her shoulder in a bored manner, "oh, him-he's dead, why do ya care?" She snorted. "Well, do you miss him?" Kasai inquired, his eyes sparkled in a manner Madoka somehow detested. She hated sparkly little kids with burning passion.

"Mm. What good'l missin' him do? Nicholas's dead. Nothin' I do's gonna change that." She replied cooly, bringing herself to look up at him, it was hard. Talking about Nicky was a very touchy subject with her-she couldn't quite help but wish he wasn't well...dead. It didn't exactly help anything that Kasai Ichijó looked EXACTLY like him. The facial and bone structure was near-identical, the same bushy hair, the same maturity reflected on both of their faces. But what was the same about both of them, was their smile that glittered with joy and radiance and something else Madoka couldn't name.

She felt somewhat relieved that one day the small creature known as Kasai Ichijó, would, someday hit puberty or a major growth spurt so she would no longer have to have Nicky reflected in him any longer.

They were rounding a corner that had a poorly-placed street sign sticking up in the middle of the angle that Madoka had integrated into her sharp mind out of habit and consistency.

"Don't you miss him a little?" Kasai protested, he walking the same pace as her, if not a little faster. He looked at her when he said it.

"I don't know." Madoka answered truthfully. She directed her attention to the concrete, chipped and cracked and in overall 'poor' condition since she had nowhere else to look.

"I mean, it's been three years since the Carnelia Tragedy occurred and he was murdered-" she stopped-mid sentence the moment the words left her lips and turned paler than usual. She looked like a sheet.

Kasai stopped walking for a millisecond before bursting out laughing. "Ha! What a hoot, the Carnelia Tragedy she says!" He whooped, clutching his stomach with his hand, slapping the other on his knee for effect.

His face suddenly became serious "Really, you're basically implying that Nicky died a hundred years ago. What kinda fool do you take me for?" He asked calmly, as they rounded another corner and a truck raced by them. Madoka went sort of silent for a moment and contemplated her next words. "Ok. Ok. Forget what I just said, but back on topic, my brother's a dead man and I can't change that." She grumbled, shoving both of her hands inside her old aviator jacket that didn't fit right.

It occurred to her out of the blue that she needed to buy some clothing that fit correctly. _Nah, last time I did that, some dude asked if they made clothes this size OUTSIDE a doll shop._

"Sucks, eh?" He glowers, his gaze is pointed directly at the ground they tread over though.

"You don't even know who did it." He mumbled, flashing a grimace in her direction. Madoka shook her head half-heartedly and let out a sigh of something that sounded a lot like resignation-ironically there would be no resigning from this, Madoka thought.

"Actually, I know a little, I couldn't see my brother's...no, my whole family...actually the whole goddamned TOWN's killer very well, but I'd recognize his eyes ANYWHERE. They looked like how I assume mine do now: empty."

She explained dourly, her hair and her jacket fanned out behind her, the fabric-like material that seemed to cling to her back constantly pulled slightly by the wind.

"So if I ever see the guy again, I'll make sure I get payback for Mama and Papa and Nicky." She said decidedly, she could tell her voice rang full of promise. But it probably sounded foolish to Kasai.

"Revenge is the entire reason that I kept fighting." She added with a small smirk that tugged at the corners of her mouth, something tugged in her heart too. Well, what other choice was left over for the 'lost little girl with nothing-no one to live for'? Madoka Maehara was lucky to be alive, but she sort of wished every now and then, some miracle would occur out of the blue (similar to the massacre of her town that turned another bright-eyed child into a gloomy, dark, vengeful, suburban kid who loved rap) and would spirit her away to join her parents.

Kasai studied her, he reached up a hand to brush his unruly brown bangs out of his face, revealing a pair of pale blue eyes that lost their usual spark and cleverness and looked more CONCERNED than anything.

"Madoka." He spoke finally, "huh?" The girl replied coolly. She narrowed her dark eyes into slits.

"...Would revenge really make your family happy?" He cautioned, like he had the nerve to go there, Madoka thought angrily, she didn't show an ounce of it. What was it to her if it made anyone happy? Her 'revenge' was undoubtedly going to make a whole group of people 'unhappy' or 'sad' or whatever. She had not the capacity left over in her heart, nor did she have the time to think about who her choice affected. "Seriously, you don't know if this guy is even still alive...it would really be a shame if you like, wasted the rest of your life chasing after a shadow."

She shook her head instead of punching him-something she had to restrain herself not to do.

"They say that it ain't impossible to heal, they say that I can continue living on; would that mean everyone I cared for died in vain? That's the last thing I want." She replied back snippily. Madoka picked up on a look of mild disappointment on Kasai Ichijó's face (it kind of reminded her of the time she refused to buy Nicky his favorite snack after school (strawberry cake with extra whipped cream piled on top so it looked like the pink dessert had a snow drift atop it) and his look of disappointment shamefully guilt-tripped her into buying it after all).

And now that blasted Ichijó wore the same look. She thought. Touché.

Kasai shrugged, he stared straight ahead and it wasn't until he stopped walking was it that Madoka noticed they stood atop a hill that went straight downward.

The breeze stopped unexpectedly then, almost adding to the idea of being a couple hundred feet above ground.

"..."

"How the hell did we climb all the way up here?" Kasai asked quietly, but all but calmly. His face dripped with sweat and shivered slightly. He must have been too engrossed in his concern for his slightly psychotic friend who was obsessed with revenge. The air mysteriously chilled all of a sudden, and the world seemed to tip straight downwards suddenly. He did his best to avoid looking down.

"Bro, If I didn't know any better, I'd assume you're scared?" Madoka taunted, her tone derisive all of a sudden, but then again...she was pretty sure Kasai was used to it. "Shut up. I, the great thief Kasai Ichijó, am NOT afraid of something so trivial like heights." He defended rudely, sticking his tongue out at her. But that didn't quell his shaking.

"Yeah, sure..." She muttered under her breath, the undertone of her mocking-ness visibly noticeable.

Kasai furrowed his brow and slowly, carefully took a step forward, and carefully summoned what Madoka thought to be, the fiercest glare he could muster. It wasn't anything.

An ordinary joe would be intimidated, but it was absolutely nothing to Madoka Maehara, Saintess of Shadow, and the Culebra clearly knew it.

"Puh-leez! This is soooo refreshing! The cold air blowing on my face, chilling and cold and that constant reminder that my life could be ended swiftly in a flash is utterly exhilarating! The danger of it all brings a spark into my veins! In fact, I feel inspired to write a new piece on this amazing feeling right now into my journal!" He hollered, tone biting and determined. Madoka was less than impressed by his claim.

"Yeah, and the tightness and pressure you applied to my arm when I walk you down holding your hand, sissy." She snorted, she didn't cut any corners, turning her nose in the air. Proud like a peacock. She LOOOVED to cut people down...er...not always literally.

"Madoka. I. Am. Serious. Here." Kasai seethed, wagging a spiny finger in her face. "I dontIn an instant, she grabbed his hand and in an even faster instant, twisted it around. It didn't crack or make any sort of appealing noise to her; Kasai flinched slightly before letting out a sigh. Madoka glowered at him exasperatedly, she grimaced (very foul look, it showed her sharpened teeth very, very well).

"Ok, listen Ichijó, I have power over here, if I wanted to...I could send ya all the way down this stupid hill with a broken limb or two. Or the second ya let your guard down, I could punch ya all the way to freaking Canada-all because ya acted outta line. I ain't in the mood to listen to you whining."

She almost-ranted, Madoka was sort of like that. It wasn't very uncommon of her to make blustery threats and snap at her 'comrades' often, if not always.

She didn't suspect Kasai was very fazed, but he COULD have shown some fear on his face. Rather than the STUPID smile he was wearing.

He looked down at the hill and the grainy concrete road that lead only straight down. Barely any cars were taking the risk of going up nor down. Smart people.

Madoka assumed he was mulling over her previous statement and weighing his options and the probability of himself getting knocked all the way down.

"Right! That makes me feel better then." He nodded brightly, his expression seemed faraway for some reason but at the same time, it's perfectly sincere. In Madoka's eyes.

Madoka hated sincere people with burning passion-what was there that she didn't hate at all?

Not a lot, she thought bitterly.

Although she was a bit more than put off at Kasai's 'unfazed-ness'. Shouldn't he be more worried?

She was VERY concerned about his 'unfazed-ness' in fact, who in their right mind SMILED and cheerfully said what he did? And it was kind of insulting too, frankly, it really made her want to bowl him all the way down the hill like a golf ball.

Rather, she mustered up her most confused "Huh?"

Kasai cocked his head to the side innocently, his thick tufts of brown hair fell over his face again and his eyes gleamed, it then occurred to Madoka that his eyes were so pale they were almost white. Of course that was to the regular eye, she noticed that they were just very, very pale blue. Practically neon, they seemed so bright. They seemed to dance and gleam depending on his emotions.

Even in the light, they still appeared to glow, watching her. It also occurred to her that one day those eyes would flicker out and fade. The idea disturbed her for some reason.

"You wouldn't threaten me if you wanted me to let my guard down, so I think I can trust you." He said matter-of-factly, he hardly looked crestfallen at her poisonous look she sent his way.

"Fair." She sulked quietly, cautiously. Madoka was a little surprised when he extended a hand in her direction.

"Oh, I'd like to write about how clammy your hand is when I hold it all the way down." He winked.

.

Kasai's Point Of View

"I swear, I'm gonna carjack a Porsche somewhere so we can get to our destination, I am so sick of hauling ass all the way across flippin' Tokyo." She grumbled when they were halfway down the hill, she had been saying that for the past ten minutes whenever Kasai stopped briefly to confirm he was not dead.

It was pretty darned hilarious to see her make statements never to be fulfilled, honestly.

Their trip downhill went pretty well, occasionally they stopped along the side of the street to catch their breaths.

Kasai tried for a small grin whenever Madoka started to complain about the long way down and how they would already be all the way down, if Kasai hadn't been walking so slowly. He frankly, did not like high places terribly and had often paled whenever he needed to climb someplace to steal or loot.

"I assume you don't like high places because your mommy tried to drop you out a window of a ten-story?" She sniffed, her mouth in a flat line signifying her disdain.

When she wanted to, Madoka was excellent at letting people know exactly how she felt and when.

"Shut up, you shouldn't insult her like that." He mumbled roughly. "And it was eleven stories." He added in a whisper-like tone, he shoved his hands into his pockets like he usually would when he was uncomfortable. Force of habit maybe. Madoka Maehara was not comforting in her next words, "I don't see why you still defend her. If you love her so much, why'd ya run away?" She snorted sharply. Her words were like a cold knife pressed to his gut.

Instantly bringing up a memory of his mother and her absurd collection of knives and would-be-weapons.

"I-I don't know. I always thought I had done something wrong...she said I was dangerous and 'unnatural'." He admitted, ignoring the burning lump in his throat that threatened to rise and spill over. "I know, what she did was sick and horrific and outright EVIL, but I really wanted to help her. She had issues, I know; she's still my mom."

Kasai stopped talking with a start, suddenly unsure whether or not to spill more of his own 'tragic tale' to the one girl who probably had it so much worse. The last thing he wanted was to be told was "deal with it" and Madoka said those painfully agonizing words enough already. She was a fighter indefinitely. She hardly ever wavered on her path and chose to move forward all the time.

"I...uh, thought I had done something horrible, so I never bothered to fight back. But she tried to drown me one day, I woulda let her too...but then, I could almost hear a voice echoing somewhere in my conscience, telling me to live." He continued, ironically telling the story was somehow refreshing, and blissfully selfish too. Shame on you Kasai. Wrapping a little girl up into your big boy problems.

But he doubted Madoka would be fazed, much less care.

"So, I suddenly was overcome with the desire to live...I ran away." He concluded, overwhelmed suddenly with a sense of loss. Kasai was then also filled with a surprising interest in staring at his shoes meekly, rather than awaiting the girl's response.

You're a weaklin'-a pathetic little baby, ya can't do nuthin' on your own. He really expected her to say.

On their agonizingly awkward trip downhill in an angle that practically forced them to walk vertically, anything seemed possible along with falling face-first into the ground and rolling down like a wheel.

Finally, thankfully, Madoka's shockingly good timing with words broke the silence in a heartbeat, her tone did not sound distinctly pitying at all, but it wasn't disgusted; Kasai felt grateful for that somehow.

"Ok, you look stressed, let's play a game." She said, tossing her head over to the side, waves of dark coal-hair floated along with it.

"If the game is called 'Who Can Kick Kasai Ichijó Farthest Down The Hill', then I'm out." Was his snooty reply.

She laughed humorlessly.

"No, idiot, it's called The Storytelling Game-we choose a category and tell a true event in our lives distinctly, or entirely related to that topic. Best storyteller wins."

Honestly, it scared him a little to think that she would come up with such a thing. Madoka wasn't really the kind of person who sits down with you to tell a horribly boring or excitingly fantastic tale of her life. Never that kind of person. She hardly even told him about her day whenever they crossed paths.

It ultimately occurred to him that her secretiveness became truly natural to him. But he did want answers about her life, what she did for fun (he assumed mass-murder, but wasn't sure), what she liked, what she disliked (everything living), etc.

He agreed to the game. "Alright, what's the topic?" He asked, challengingly. He caught the glint in her eye and Madoka spoke airily: "Best Friggin Day Of Your Crapshoot Of A Life."

Kasai nodded and searched his brain for something to say, he didn't have a lot. In fact, his good days were painfully numbered in small quantities. One could likely count them all on a single hand.

Without thinking it over, he said the most obvious thing he could think of: "Being accepted into my gang. I mean, without them, I'd be lost. Even DEAD, I owe so much to them. They're strange people, but I couldn't live without them. That feeling of acceptance I got whenever I was near 'em made me wanna tear up. I never had it in my old household. I left a dysfunctional family and found a better one." He said ruefully, it was the entire truth. He hoped Madoka wouldn't be offended, seeing that A) she was a loner. B) she didn't have a family anymore.

"Mmm, ok. Cool...uh, for mine..."

She looked as if searching for an excuse to get out of talking. Suddenly, she stood up straight. "Oh!"

"We're here." She stated plainly, coming to a stop.

Kasai jolted his head upwards with a painful cracking noise barely noticeable from a foot away.

"What." He outright muttered.

They stood before a small apartment building, a brick two-story that likely could fit about three or four tenants, it was in bad shape though...moss and weeds grew at astonishingly strange angles and in even more astonishingly strange nooks and crannies. The outside walls were cracked very noticeably and paint from the windowsills chipped and reduced to dust.

A window was broken, a set of tattered floral-print drapes visible.

Kasai felt a little bit more than confused, but his eyes followed Madoka's outstretched finger pointing to one of those funny cars parked in a strange angle outside the building.

It was red and in almost as bad shape as the building it sat next to.

"What." Kasai said again, feeling more or less like a broken record.

"Here, we can drive the rest of the way." Madoka smirked. "Madoka...unless you have some invisible chauffeur awaiting us, I think it's not out of line to imagine you've lost it." He snapped, gesturing towards the thing. Madoka Maehara was roughly about 4 feet tall if not taller with her shoes, and there was no way she'd reach the wheel. Even if so, they'd be pulled over by the cops in about ten seconds flat.

"Calm down, the glass is special; you can see out...but not in!" "Oh, and nobody will be able to tell! I'm a real experienced driver!" She twittered excitedly, bouncing up for effect. Her locks of dark black hair floated around her, in little curls like dark chocolate or something coal-colored.

"Um..." Kasai pondered his options, walk all the way to who-knows-where with Madoka? Or drive there and get there in arguably-less time.

But he really doubted she had driving experience. No normal eleven-year-old girls did that for fun, playing with dolls and giving each other horribly hideous makeovers? More than likely. Sitting underground most of the time and sneaking around the city with a false identity gathering underworld information? Uh-uh. But...then again, that appeared to be precisely what Madoka was made of.

That still didn't quell his doubts.

"I'm sorry to say this; Madoka, you. Are. Scaring. The. Shit. Out. Of. Me!" He half-exploded, throwing his arms above his head, face red. His mass of brown hair seemed to spike up with each word.

"Well, I'm sorry to say this; you're talkin' to the girl who's spent exactly six months of her life underground playin' that GTA game and every other punk racin' game I've been able to get my hands on." She shot back, "And I have never been caught by the police." She hissed before leaning in so close he could hear her angry breathing on his face. It was anything but pleasant.

And why did her breath smell like meat? Kasai knew that Madoka Maehara had a very, VERY intense love of meat and other stuff like that, but he was pretty sure that they hadn't eaten anything coming from the protein category anytime near RECENT.

Too close.

"I'll drive with you, but please don't be surprised when I randomly shout 'Jesus take the wheel!' When we're seconds away from death."

"Eh, deal." Madoka shrugged, rolling her eyes to the side, showing the whites of her eyes.

He would have taken the action for exasperation, but he near-glimpsed her dark violet eyes flicker momentarily, sort of like how you see that annoying fly buzzing next to your ear; the moment you reach up to murder it, it's gone. In that case, Kasai was pretty sure she was looking at something.

Or FOR...something, maybe...

* * *

Kasai held a tiny blue capsule filled with bitter medicine in between his fingers, the vile thing seemed to shine in the hot sun. He glared back at it.

It had been years since he had last taken the medicine, about when he still lived with his mother. After running away from home he had stopped taking them-and had no intention of ever doing so again. They tasted like shit.

But his mother, being 'off-her-rocker' like Madoka would always say, had been convinced for the seven years he remained in her 'care'...that he was the one who had something wrong with him. He did have funny dreams every so often that slowly started occurring more often as the years went by, and he did feel like he was being watched or being ogled at by someone who wasn't there at times...but Kasai was firmly attached to his belief that he wasn't crazy. Of course that never really stopped his mother from practically stuffing him with crazy medicines and pills.

After he had ditched his so-called home, he threw them out. But that did nothing to lessen the distance between himself and the shadows of his family-nightmares and flashbacks shook him often and eventually, Kasai begrudgingly started stealing from the drugstore for small bottles of the horrid pills.

He shoved his hand in his pocket and dropped the pill within the red folds of fabric before Madoka could catch a glimpse of them.

"How did you steal this car?" Kasai asked as soon as they hit an intersection, to be frank: Madoka was an eerily good driver, and she hadn't been kidding when she claimed to be the best. She was sitting on a few phone books and the seat was moved in as far as possible.

...but, she was pretty good still-"Eh, I found it abandoned on the side of the road one day, I climbed inside for shelter that night and then decided to take it." Madoka yawned, turning the wheel slightly, it astonished him how her foot reached the gas pedal. He did slightly recall a time she said she had 'long legs' before kicking him in the stomach. He deftly and promptly, fell backwards. The reason remained unclear.

They approached a red light, prompting Madoka to slam her foot over the break, causing him to jerk forward uncomfortably.

"I lived in it for a month or two before I lived in that K-mart," she brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Kasai shifted in his position, the seat was stiff and itchy-like it had been covered in starch. The fabric was moth-eaten and dilapidated. Behind was even worse, about six dozen Do Not Disturb signs sat in clear boxes in stacks, a box of half-eaten grain cereal lay on the floor, two tubs of Vaseline, fourteen fake flowers, 17 nutrition bars, a potted plant, twelve plastic Winnie the Poohs, twenty-nine empty packages of rice noodles, four packages of beef and assorted meat, one box of Kleenex, a department store tote bag hanging on the back door handle filled with cans, 212 cans of either beer or coffee, a weird stain of something red, sugar wafers, and a birdcage with cardboard taped over over it.

"U-uh..." Kasai stuttered nervously, ah, the ever infamous, the ever RARE: the K-Mart mention.

Madoka dwelled in a cheap, 24/7 marketplace for a very long time about half a year prior: having no adequate place to live and to collect info (and money) discreetly. She moved in one day, browsed magazines, played the demo games hooked up, read labels, ordered pizza at the indoor kiosks, and just slept in the racks at night. A brilliantly magnificent lifestyle for a brilliantly magnificent vagrant.

Well, Kasai Ichijó prided his front teeth (somehow still straight as a shelf) so he made sure to never refer to her as 'bum'.

Besides, she attracted customers-shockingly. Despite her unfriendly look, she played all the video games and constantly challenged people to fight her in an epic battle of button-mashing.

The K-Mart sold 50 new RPG games after a college student had challenged Madoka to duke it out in a one-on-one fight in Swordmaster's Gambit II.

She only left to go to her underground base weekly. But Kasai only knew so much, Madoka hardly ever brought up her previous living situation to his face and didn't so much as speak the word 'K-Mart.'

"So!" Madoka piped up, gently pushing down on the brakes causing the car to roll to a halt at the red light. "That's the story behind the car, it's pretty old from what I can tell..." She gestured to a small splintery crack in the dashboard with her right hand. Kasai threw her a look of uncertainty at the condition of the car. "But it still works!" She added in a protesting voice.

To prove her point, Madoka pressed a button on the stereo and blasted a slow-sounding song. She flinched visibly and glared at the speakers. "Dammit! I hate this song!" She hissed, reaching for the knob to switch to a different song.

Kasai reached up and grabbed her hand and stopped, it sounded familiar...but he wasn't so sure where he had heard it, the sound of a man (sort of?) singing in soft tones. He was pretty sure he had heard it someplace before he had run away from home, about six years ago.

"Oh," Kasai jerked up. "Fly Away." He noted in recognition at the soft, melodic tune. And ignoring Madoka's warning glance she shot at him, he opened his mouth and sang along to the tune.

"The day I met you, I could never forget,

Oh, that shade of your ruffled hair,

Your laugh like bells ringing through the air.

I guess there was a lot I couldn't possibly forget,

But even without you I know the moon will shine, the sun won't cease to set.

What's more left to do? That smile I'd given to you one day, for tears that'll someday melt away...

What did it possibly mean to you?

Don't you wish you could touch the sky, leave all that pain to pass right by,

Don't you wish you could stand at the center of the earth,

Don't you wish you could somehow fix all of this? So surely in due time we could both manage to figure just a bit,

Don't you wish you could sometimes just die right here right now if that is what fate would allow...ohhh,

Don't you wish you could change it all to how things used to be, maybe to spend just one last day alone, just the two of us: you and me?

I wish I had a pair of wings to bring me up to the sky up to where the day will break, oh

Oh, don't you wish that you could fly away?

...

"Please stop, you're upsetting the Winnie the Poohs." Madoka interrupted, slamming her fist over the stereo, ending the music abruptly. Kasai stopped singing along to the tune and slumped back, embarrassed. He didn't know where it had come from-he had liked to sing as a kid, but he hardly ever did now. "Jeez, I didn't ask you to belt out Kenji's 5-year-old album." She scoffed.

(Kasai was a good singer, she acknowledged, his talent was pretty newsworthy and he could inevitably carry a tune better than most people at 13. But hearing him sing made her her heart constrict and her throat tighten, like she had something to miss.)

Kasai turned red. "How do you know about his album?" He muttered shaking his head a little, refusing now to stare at her-directing his attention to the dashboard, dusty and chipped but somehow still usable.

Madoka went a bit silent at that mention, Kasai felt afraid he had said something wrong. But then silently reprimanded himself for being afraid of a girl nearly a foot smaller than him. Madoka gripped the wheel tighter, her knuckles whitened. Kasai had hardly been expecting a calm reaction, much less an explanation when she spoke. "I...I liked to sing. I sang a lot before my family died," she reminisced, her eyes resentful-"I liked all of Kenji's albums so much, I sang all o' his songs, at church...in front of my family, or just to myself. I-I don't mean to brag or anythin'; I was an unusually talented singer."

She stared straight ahead, staring likely at the white car in front of them, at the young couple and their kids, barely visible to the typical eye. They were all laughing at something that probably only they would understand, people trapped in their own worlds with no idea how it could be swept from under their feet in an instant, Kasai thought. "...nah, I lied...it was just a stupid, simple time of 6-year-old me." She laughed wryly, though nothing seemed funny enough to laugh about, Madoka was easily amused perhaps. She laughed when he fell from a tree during their 'jewel-hunt' in Osaka and broke his wrist. She laughed when he burned himself eating a piece of steak at the barbecue/hobo fire they constructed one night.

"I didn't tell you about my best day, well...I went to a small singin' competition. I lived in a small town, see...Carnelia was a really pitifully small place, but they held a singin' competition in the annual town festival. I entered by myself with a simple song that my mother composed, there were dozens of other girls, all older than me. But hey, guess what? Somehow I won, my voice sounded 'purer' than those other girls's. And when I stepped down from the stage, everyone was cheering for me, my mom, dad, and Nicky in the front row clapping like mad. And for the first time, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life."

"But I was stupid back then, I guess in those times, I never assumed I would become a murderer or a revenge-obsessed freak. But hey, life is like that. I never had time for singin' after. But that was my best day. It was pretty stupid." She laughed, like there was something genuinely funny about that.

Kasai noticed that with Madoka, nothing was ever 'good-funny. And were they even going anywhere? He didn't think so, it had been about ten or fifteen minutes.

"You ever notice you got a little...what do you people call it...an ahoge thingy on your head. Like, two of them?" Kasai bleakly asked, poorly attempting to change the subject.

She waved a hand in the air, "Yep, annoying as heck."

"But I've got other things to worry about, like revenge. What I'm going to eat, how to not die..." Madoka chuckled.

She glanced over at Kasai, pressing her lips into a thin line, "I don't know." Madoka tugged a strand of dark coal-like hair roughly, a few strands came out.

Her hair was very thick, Kasai noticed. It curled around her and in little ripple-like waves but stood up at ends like barbed wires or thorns. He liked to touch it when she wasn't looking (sooooo not creepy, right?) but found himself surprised when he didn't prick his fingers on the sharper-looking points of her hair. She had a lot of hair. She could probably make four bald men happy and still have hair left over.

_Mom had thick hair, I used to grab it in fistfuls and pull on it._ He recalled, barely remembering a faint trace of memory: a long lush cascade of dark brown hair, similar to his own. But much darker, his hair was slightly shaggy and spiny on some ends-it was colored of milky coffee or creamy chocolate milk. He used to pull it with the curiosity all babies had, and she let him relish in the wonders of long silky hair.

_Of course, that was a long while ago...if I had done it anytime after my sixth birthday, I'd be mutilated._ He reminded himself. And Madoka looks like a porcupine. _Why am I remembering this now? And, I can't believe I'm in a car driven by an eleven-year-old. I'm starting to think this is a lot of trouble just for some food._

He glanced over at her, Madoka seemed enthralled in watching the lint fly off the air conditioner than him.

"Ahem." He cleared his throat noisily, she ignored him purposefully, her dark eyes pinned to a piece of lint becoming invisible and visible once more repeatedly.

Oh, right. He thought. "So?"

"Maybe you should sing more, I mean, I don't have any trouble believing you were talented back then. Even if I haven't heard you sing before." Kasai pointed out, more of an offer, than a suggestion. Like, Hey, I sing, you...used to...we'll be buddies forever! We can sing together.

"I ain't your friend." Madoka snapped, almost like she possessed a secret ear into his thoughts and made it a point to constantly disagree with them.

Actually, Kasai was 100% sure this was true. He shrugged and replied: "Fine by me, I don't wanna be involved with you that much anyways."

A flat object struck the side of his head, hard. "Fool, you were supposed to disagree with me." She scoldingly reprimanded. Waving a plastic cutting board in the air before tossing it, discarding into the backseat, where it clattered against one of the Winnie The Poohs. "You want to be my friend, like...forever. I'm your rock, I like...own your life." Madoka exaggerated, her words brash and unmistakably honest. "I don't even like to think what you'd do without me." She smirked, swaggeringly. Madoka Maehara liked to be acutely aware of her so-called 'greatness'. Kasai noticed, maybe a little too aware. She wasn't all that great on a different note; part of what she was saying made little sense somehow. He wasn't too sure what he'd do without her either. "You should feel blessed that your life was wrapped up in that of the amazing me."

"You're one to talk, I don't think you'd be any better off without me-you idolized Junko Enoshima for like, a year. Even though she's responsible for the destruction of the world."

He stared ahead, fixated on several tall buildings ahead, they were on the freeway, the rush and their speed had changed and accelerated along with all the other moving cars. Madoka had turned the air on full-blast, so it was nearly 50°. But the buildings...hard to believe that only just years ago, they were reduced to nothing but dust and decay.

Now they stood upright again, all brand-new. It was how life was, since the Future Foundation was formed, the rest of the surviving population came together to rebuild whatever was left of their world. It was like a spell cast over humanity somehow brought them together again to start over. People often said it was like God had lent them a hand, in due time...much was rebuilt and life renewed once more. But Kasai was among few who accurately saw the damage 'The Tragedy, did to mankind.

The devastation was huge, and Kasai was lucky to be born shortly after the rebuilding was entering its middle stages.

Most of the buildings were fixed and the population had experienced a startling boom in numbers.

...

"Yeah," Madoka interrupted his thoughts on humanity's rebuild, "I did think she was pretty cool, she and that sister of hers managed to do all that..." She mumbled, embarrassed, keeping her thin and bony hand firmly planted to the wheel. "I don't even care how twisted and messed-up it is, I just respected her as a person who left a mark. Something we, as people will never forget."

"She made an impact on the world, and I think that was somethin' she probably wanted besides despair." Madoka noted, "I mean, even without her alive...there's still gonna be lots of assholes who're gonna do the same things she did."

"You, are a little ray of sunshine aren't ya." Kasai notably stated, reaching over to flick Madoka on the tip of her nose.

She swatted his hand and missed as he pulled away. She glared at him, the kind of glare that someone gives when they want to pick a fight. "You're just another thieving rat, who's own mother thought he was a freak to top it all off." She fired back, snidely. She pressed her sweaty palms tightly against the wheel, turning her head away.

"Ooh, the 'mom comeback'-what a burn." He snorted sarcastically, words didn't seem to have any sort of lasting effect any longer. They rolled right off like raindrops on a car window and splashed into the ground forming little puddles to evaporate and one day come back again. Her sharpness was more tolerable, he thought. The air chilled as they spoke and seemed to go even lower in temperature.

They were leaving the freeway soon, Kasai noticed by the lack of cars. In fact, the brunette thief could have sworn they were leaving the CITY.

"Well, Madoka. I might be a rat, but I'm not a hermit." He snarked back, sticking his tongue out.

The tips of the girl's ears reddened considerably and she gripped the wheel even tighter-somehow a possible feat...he feared she would wrench the thing right off.

"Bastard." She spat out, shooting him a thousand-needle-glare, that failed epically. "Ouch." He mumbled without any force.

"Stupid."

"Dumb walnut." Madoka hissed.

"Short little evil person." He rebuked, lazily with a yawn. Kasai secretly liked poking at her, although it was a considerably dangerous risk: pissing off your driver.

"Runaway."

"Emo."

"Gangster."

"Garbage-sniffer."

"Punk-ass jerkface."

"Language." He warned calmly, "Screw you." Seemed to be all she can reply.

"Midget."

"Cheapskate."

"Identity-stealer."

"..."

(Ok, so to explain that one, once upon a time, a rich little spoiled girl named Madoka Maehara lived. In a beautiful and tearjerkingly enviable life with a nice mansion and a couple thousand servants clad in black and lustrous fabrics. A full Japanese. Madoka Maehara drank tea and ate small little cakes no later than 3:00 and she wore thousands of dresses and traditional kimonos imaginable of every color, shape, and design. She was the epitome of 'princess' and had the life every girl wanted. Except she had athsma and rarely left the house, her parents always searched for a cure but none seemed to work on their daughter. So eventually they gave up searching for a miracle to improve her health. One day though, she felt well enough to go on a trip with her parents, to visit a relative in Kobe; she boarded a fancy car driven by a footman and her mother and father. Unfortunately. Tragedy struck and the gas engine caught fire mysteriously and she and her parents died in the flames. Supposedly, her body was never found-searches conducted for her sprung up all over; there was little to no hope she had even survived. Eventually the government announced her 'dead'. Ok, so now around the time...a vagrant traveler happened to be in Japan at the time, word reached her sharp ears of Madoka Maehara and in two months, lots of research, and a bottle of hair growth formula, the girl was able to convince the authorities she was Madoka Maehara and had somehow survived by some unknown reason. This 'survival' was kept secret from the press because the poser had bribed an official to keep the info from being disclosed. That was that.)

...

"...Touché." Madoka smirked, she seemed pleased at his recollection of the identity issue. She had been pretty pleased when he found it out too, Kasai was good at solving things.

She remembered when he confronted her about her false identity about a year or so ago?

_"How...how did ya even know?! I did everythin' to keep it from being discovered!" Madoka Maehara spluttered, she seemed at a loss. Words failed her._

_Kasai cockily tilted his chin upwards and nodded curtly, then he took a step in her direction and yelled as loudly as humanly possible:_

_"YOU'RE A PART CAUCASIAN TEN-YEAR-OLD! I AM NOT STUPID!"_

"Eh." Kasai shrugged slightly, smiling.

"You're lucky you don't have any other family that could have proven your ruse otherwise." He chirped, taking his hands and stretching them out above his shaggy head as far as they could go.

"Yeah." Madoka replied dourly, staring down at the ruffles of her skirt, the creases and the lines on the long, pleated fabric. It was slightly torn close to the bottom, like a portion had been devoured off of it.

"So lucky." She murmured.

"Man, I'm stiff..." He mumbled, he stared out the window, towards the horizon.

"Culebra."

"What?" Kasai looked at her, confused. That was out of the blue.

"That's the name of a man-eatin' snake or something?" Madoka shrugged, looking over her shoulder. They rolled to a gentle stop at the street light. The pole the machine hung off of was graffitied and vandalized pretty badly.

Kasai's eyes widened just a smidgen, his old gang nickname. He wore it proudly along with several of the scars on his back and stomach brutally acquired from several foolishly-picked streetlights along his block. The men who dwelled in alleyways and sewers were usually tough. Especially in the city. But Kasai had brains where those men had deformities and muscles and he hardly ever lost a fight.

Therefore earning him the name 'Culebra'.

Snake.

A fitting title for a thief.

"Mmm, my brother Tanken came up with it." Kasai explained, "He was a really great guy, he always looked out for me and always accepted me. Tanken was the only one who really understood me." He said, describing the man who bonded with him upon joining a gang.

He felt a gentle sensation when his brother's (sort of) name rolled off his tongue, something familiar and welcoming. Kasai Ichijó had no clue what he felt whenever he remembered Tanken, but it beckoned towards him. He had never felt it when he lived back at his old house that was more of a prison than a home. But he started to feel it when he started living with his gang. And yet... It was too far to grasp completely, so he settled for basking in the unclear emotion like he'd never get enough.

Kasai spared a glance at Madoka, who just observed him out of the corner of her dark and squinty eye, now glinting with interest. He should have been freaked out, but he decided she was trustworthy. "He...accepted me. I'd do anything for him, which is coincidentally the reason I'm with you. A strange girl in a strange vehicle headed to who-knows-where." Kasai laughed at the irony. It was loyalty towards his gang-and brother that brought him and Madoka together after all, and it was her being mentally screwed up and needing cash that made her stick with him. Was that really so horrible? Likely, Kasai thought.

_Wait, no. Maybe that's a lie...that's not really true._

_I'm happy. For some weird reason, I feel like it was a good thing I met her._

"I'm glad I met you. You make everything interesting for me-and whenever I need a reason to be pissed off, I'll just visit you." He admitted, honesty was not his best trait-as a thief...

But...he realized he had almost never lied to Madoka.

"Huh," Madoka Maehara snorted uninterestedly, they started moving again, "I guess ya aren't that bad after all." She mused, staring at him sideways, taking the time to look up from her task at the wheel, she gave him a lopsided smile that barely stretched even an inch. And she looked like she was unused to making the expression by the way her mouth twitched momentarily.

Kasai nearly laughed at the sight itself.

It wasn't a grimace, it wasn't a smirk either. It didn't even look grim and displeased like he had committed some personal felony.

"Thanks." She nodded. But underneath her curt glance, looked like sincerity. Definitely not tenderness, but it was clearly not a disapproving glare.

Kasai stared at her, well, more like gawked at her in a very undignified manner.

"Oh, and I have a present for ya." She added sharply, seeing his mind-boggling stare. She reached into the breast pocket of her tattered jacket and withdrew it, she pulled something up from the beaten folds of fabric.

Something silvery, she dropped it into his lap and returned her attention to driving.

"Oh my gosh." He whispered, faintly audible, lifting up a silvery chain and a silver crescent moon pendant from his lap. A bit of rust crusted onto the side of the chain, interloping with the metallic silver on an end.

He recognized it instantly.

"Th-that's the pendant my brother gave me!" He near-squeaked, hands shaking. Kasai clutched it tightly, he was POSITIVE it had vanished one day and had spent hours looking for it when it was inside Madoka's pocket all this time.

"Yep." Madoka turned the wheel slightly, initiating a turn into a different road. "I...'borrowed' it for a while intendin' to sell it for some cash; looking closely, I realized it's the same kind as my brother Nicky's." She reached into the collar of her shirt and pulled up a golden sun pendent, each ray was artistically sculpted to perfect symmetry and angle, pure gold.

The initials

Z.S.

engraved on the side.

Kasai stared at his own pendant and saw a matching signature. Shocked, he stared back at Madoka incredulously.

"I couldn't bring myself to sell it...so I held onto the thing-Er, sorry about that." She apologized, looking a tad bit flustered. Her face tinted pink. Instead of being irritated at her thievery as he usually would be, Kasai felt himself warming up on the inside.

"Woo-hoo! Tanken will be so pleased when I tell him! Aw, thanks Madoka. You're actually a nice person." He twittered excitedly, re-clasping the necklace onto his neck once more. The silver moon glinted almost like it shared his happiness. "Wait, what the hell do ya mean, 'actually'?!"

She shrieked, glaring at him evilly. "He'll be even more happy when I find that base!" Kasai laughed, completely ignoring Madoka's comment and angry look she was giving him.

Madoka let out a defeated sigh. She curled her lips into a pout "You really love the guy don't ya."

"O' course!" Kasai piped up, touching the necklace gently with his finger. "In fact, if I were to imagine all the people I would want to spend the rest of my life with...he'd definitely be there!"

Madoka studied him curiously, then, brushing a strand of hair out of her face, she turned to him.

"Er..." She started to mutter, looking down at the seat rather than at him. "B-by any chance...if ya imagine all the people you wanna be with forever again, assuming there's room..." Kasai frowned and stared at her. "Spit it out." He said.

"M-might I be there too?" She asked, stuttering.

Eh?

Kasai weighed his options briefly, I could tell her yes...or I could laugh it off and remind her that she doesn't want anything to do with me...but if she's being serious-it might piss her off a bit...maybe I should change the subject- "Forget it!" She abruptly interrupted his train of thought, shaking her head frantically. "I.." Her face flushed and Madoka shook her head.

"That was out of line, sorry." She apologized, not daring to look up in fear of what Kasai would do or say.

"Actually, yes." "You're there too, and I hope you don't forget about me. Like, we can stay friends after this job is done and I've paid you back." Kasai grinned, tilting his head to the side, like he was making an offer. Let's stay friends.

Madoka's face turned a series of different shades of red all at once before she whacked him on the side of the head with her fist.

"I-idiot! Don't say stupid stuff like that you dummy!"

"But wasn't that what you wanted to hear?!"

* * *

**A/N: Ok, hi...I'm back...I can't even say how sorry I am for my inactivity. First of all, school and responsibility and also social life are all determined to kill me. And also I didn't have my computer for a while, so I wasn't able to write a lot. (Also writers block). I was kinda unsure whether or not to upload this, I mean, some stuff doesn't make too much sense, but I was too lazy to do any major revisions (sorry about that!) Here's the thing, I have a lot more for this chapter, however I had too much written, and I'm still writing for it. (There is over 20,000 words and I don't know when to stop) So I will try to upload it in parts. But after this chapter, I'm going to tackle a few more of my requests. So I'll try to be quicker if I can.**

**-Alice **


	7. The Summer I Was 15 pt1

**Ok, here's the next chapter! (I'm starting to think that some of the requests will turn into multichapter stories, if that's ok...but anyways, this was a lot of fun and I enjoyed writing this character. Thanks to Empress of Purgatory for the character!**

* * *

It was on the summer of my 15th year, that my friend Ayame Akiyama decided I needed to get out and spend more time with people.

She was apparently persevering a notion that I was a lonely and disturbed child because of a custody battle between my mom and dad, (dad won) and I was separated from mom, who was tired and by all means, fed up with constantly moving and adapting and re-adapting over and over again. She lived in the U.S. with her parents, recovering from stress, and I lived with dad. Sure, I was sad, and kind of bitter sometimes towards both my parents (I had stopped writing to mom, even though I received a letter every week from her) and I didn't call dad while he was out...but I was perfectly satisfied with my life as a (almost) zoologist.

But Ayame apparently wasn't; she forced me to get a job, in hopes that her friend would 'recover his loneliness and depression' (it wasn't really depression, just slight isolation).

So, by all means, without my consent, she got me a job at the city zoo with the animals part-time as a summer job, (because hey, I'm aspiring to be a zoologist-so I should get a job at the zoo, by all means!) (her father, Ken Akiyama) owned the place, basically she put in a good word about me and my love of animals) so I could be with not only the animals, but the smelly bustling tourists who bought crappy souvenirs, who ate too much junk food, who only stopped to gawk at the stranger-looking animals.

Basically, while I handed out flyers advertising 20% off deals in the sweltering heat, Ayame sold ice cream in an air-conditioned store, well off from the heat, to little kids unaware of their serious sugar intake.

One afternoon, I finished my shift, bid farewell to the animals, each and every one, starting with the friendly Blue-fronted Amazon: Casper, that sat on his perch and made laughing noises every so often, Blue-fronted parrots were very good talkers, despite their limited vocabulary. Casper only knew how to say one phrase, or at least from what I knew. "Good Luck".

"Oi! Liam!"

A tall, lanky boy rushed towards me on my way out, with a large cardboard box balanced hastily in his clumsy grip. "Shizuka-kun" I greeted politely. "Just Akio is fine." He persisted, like always. Akio Shizuka was approximately six feet tall, with spiky blond hair that unnecessarily seemed to make him even taller than he actually was. He was lanky and had long, thin arms and legs, but he was a walking ball of energy. I couldn't even recall a time he wasn't bustling about or running off to one thing or another. "Look! My boss gave me these!"

I peered into his box, several lavish, glazed pastries caught my eye, stacked upon each other and packed tightly. Akio worked at a bakery close by, his boss was also an old friend of his from school, so he usually came by with lots of baked goods and sweet foods packed with calories.

"Here," he fished around in the pile of sweets and pulled out a fluffy wrapped cinnamon bun, covered in sugary, shiny glaze and sprinkled with nutmeg. "You can have one." It almost looked appealing-but I wasn't a devotee of fatty foods. "No thanks, I don't really like foods in high calories." I declined, as nicely as I could.

"Man, you really need to treat yourself one of these days."

"It's not treating myself, I don't like fatty foods. I worked pretty hard to disburden myself of foods with high calorie content. Unlike you, I want to actually live to my seventies and not die of extreme obesity." I retorted, rolling my eyes. "Rude!" Akio huffed. "I'll bet you're only this mean to your friends."

"You're not wrong." I agreed.

"Hey!"

"Ok, fine, but still take a few in case you decide you want to be a regular teenager and try one." He bargained, pulling out a few more cinnamon buns before I could protest in my righteous indignation: the harmfulness of high calorie intake.

"...Tch." Seeing no choice, I took them anyways, just to please Akio and to get him off my back, I stared discontentedly at the pastries in my hands, trying to formulate a method to dispose of them properly. I'll just throw 'em out at home. I thought.

"See ya, Liam!" Akio waved, beaming, before turning around with the box clutched in his hands and scampering away. His tall figure eventually vanished around a corner.

I didn't like sugary foods, or sweets. Calories were just another step closer to stroke or diabetes or worst, death. Or so I had made myself believe. But Akio Shizuka clearly was incapable of thinking things realistically, and dismissed the possibility of endangering his health, and would proceed to load his bloodstream with sugar and empty calories and fast food like he usually did.

I stared at the food once more in displeasure. I sure as hell didn't want anything to do with them.

But if there was anything morally correct that I could remember, it was that mom said it was rude to turn down a gift.

* * *

Later that night, in my apartment, enclosed in my room with only the reading light on, writing another animal research paper to add to my absurdly large collection (Adelaide Pigmy Blue-tongue Skink-an endangered species only found in Australia.) I had recently received an invitation to possibly get a job as a famous zoologist Seta Himura's assistant. Pretty cool. I mean, it'd be my dream to be practically handed the golden opportunity to work with someone so amazing. What they don't tell you that there's this qualifying thingy, at the end of summer, I gotta turn in a bunch of reports and findings I've made. I'm about 45% done, and it had taken nearly five months to complete all of it. Needless to say, my chances were pretty slim. While I was contemplating over these facts again, and debating on whether or not I should pull an all-nighter to finish another one, I heard a knock at my door.

Inexplicably rare of course, nobody bothered to visit the socially-awkward animal-freak.

Kicking off my thin blanket, I shuffled out my room and over to the door, forgetting I was only wearing my boxers, an old white shirt advertising a sports team I hadn't even heard of before, and really worn socks with a picture of Pikachu on the ankle part.

Needless to say, I was a little more than 'slightly embarrassed' when Ayame Akiyama stood in front of me, wearing her work outfit and with a paper grocery bag in her arms.

"Uh..." I stammered. Ayame just looked at me nonchalantly. "Hiya, I heard Akio gave you some of his extra treats." She said in a brisk greeting. She pushed right past me without asking permission to enter and plopped down on my couch, the leather crinkled beneath her. She dumped her bag on the wooden coffee table. "...Well, come right in Ayame." I muttered sarcastically.

"What is it?" I asked, a little irate by her sudden barging in.

"I came to drop off some vegetables, my grandmother sent extra and told me to give them to you." She said brightly, gesturing to the bag, leaning back on one of the soft pillows.

I distinctly recalled Ayame's grandmother, she was a withered and spindly old women with thin, wobbly joints and little strength, but she was a pretty good storyteller and made really excellent cookies, if memory serves. "Okay." I said. "Thanks. You can...uh, go now..." I said, jerking my chin towards the direction of the door.

"What? You kidding? I just got here!" She snorted dismissively. Why is everyone giving me stuff? I don't want to be indebted to them. I thought, the whole situation was pretty enigmatic. Sure, Akio was pretty generous and giving-but not Ayame. Definitely not Ayame. Ayame was the sort of girl who only paid attention to her own personal needs, with blatant disregard for anyone or anything else. I stared at the bag of vegetables. I didn't go shopping that often, and usually sent Akio or sometimes Ayame with some cash to buy my groceries for me. It then occurred to me that receiving gifts wasn't so bad after all. But I still blurted out without thinking:

"Ok, what's the catch?"

"Catch?" Ayame crinkled up her nose in confusion. "Yeah, don't you expect something in return?" I asked, arching an eyebrow. She shook her head. "I'm just doing this out of the kindness of my heart!" She patted her chest as if to emphasize her point and blinked her big brown eyes innocently. I gave her the 'oh really?' look and crossed my arms.

She scoffed. "Ok! Just let me stay here for a while and we'll call ourselves even!" She brushed a bit of her short chestnut hair behind her seashell-shaped ear. "You got any tea?" Ayame asked, glancing towards the small refrigerator curiously. Oh well. I nodded and walked to the refrigerator. Ayame spoke up, "So, how's Tsubaki-chan?"

"Same as always." I said rolling my eyes. "Angry, distant, pissy." Tsubaki Murakami was an angry person who worked at the same place I did. But she tended to the animals, the job I wanted, instead of handing out flyers, why? Well, given the choice to put either the distant, cool-loner or the angry, pissant mentally-unstable girl in charge of attracting customers and positive buzz for a public facility...you choose the boy.

Plus, Akio once tried to hit on her and she retaliated by trying to sic the bears on him. And she also was arrested for throttling an ice cream shop employee because they didn't get her caramel sauce right.

"Well, you can't blame her. She's lonely and has nobody around." Ayame pointed out. I shrugged, I wanted to disagree with her-but I chose not to do that. Honestly, I was lonely and had nobody around except for my blithe and happy friends. But I wasn't always angry because my ice cream never got the right amount of caramel sauce, I didn't sic bears on people who thought I was cute.

I grabbed a can of black tea and tossed it to her, she caught it with one hand and flicked open the tab with her pinky finger. "I hope she doesn't get arrested again." She mused, as if also recalling the Caramel Incident. "Please, she has her family to pay the bail-they're loaded as hell."

"So, I thought you were supposed to be polishing your father's absurdly large trophy collection."

Ayame groaned and dramatically fell against the cushions. "Don't remind me." She mumbled. Ken Akiyama was one of the best businessmen in New Hope City, and was the proud owner of at least seven large pure gold trophies proudly broadcasting his success and wealth to the whole world. He loved them just as much as he loved his only daughter, and probably paid more mind to them than her too. I bit back a bought of laughter, Ayame hated those trophies with burning passion and fury. But she couldn't throw them away.

"Well," she took a long sip of her drink before speaking again, "I guess both of our parents don't like us." I shook my head. "Your father doesn't pay attention to you, mine just doesn't care."

...

We stayed there, we chatted about sports teams, celebrities secretly taking drugs to enhance their performances and making themselves more physically attractive, politicians disagreeing and being as fantastically stupid as usual, the local fast food joint's crappy hamburgers that did not resemble hamburgers so much as blackened lumps of coal in between two pieces of soggy bread. I hardly noticed when the sun dipped low in the sky and was surprised when I looked out the window to see that the city was bathed in darkness, illuminated by glowing city lights.

"It's late." Ayame observed casually. "I'd better get going." She stood up and walked to the door and put her hand on the knob, lingering there. Like she was expecting something from me. I didn't know what to say.

"It was nice seeing you." I blurted out, I knew that was something that you have to say when someone is about to leave your presence. But it was kind of true. But from the back of her head, it looked like she smiled for a second, but her thick mop of hair covered her face. "Nice seeing you too."

* * *

The next day, when the sky was slightly cloudy and the air felt damp and thick, I pulled myself out of bed. My eyes fell on the stack of papers messily shoved and strewn on the desk. Several pen holders were knocked down, and my workplace was a mess. I sighed in disappointment. I had barely managed to complete last night's report by stretching the time before I went to sleep just a tad bit. I doubted I'd ever get to be Seta Himura's assistant.

I pulled myself out of bed, showered, brushed my teeth, dressed in my usual button-down and jeans. My hair was being unruly that day, so I left it tangly and in tufts and uneven bits. Some guys do that and look like a Shounen anime protagonist. I do it, and I look like a goddamn runaway from the mental asylum.

I took the train to the zoo, once I walked in, I was greeted by some coworkers (I only chattered briefly to be polite.)

Basically I spent the whole day just hanging, since business was moderately low and it was rather peaceful (the eight-year-olds were all probably watching the new movie that came out). Because there weren't a lot of people for me to plaster a sunny smile for and hand a flyer for discounts and special attractions, I ditched the papers and the free samples of peanuts at the entrance and walked along the curved brick pathways, with the animals. Animals liked me better than people did, I guess. It was a pretty decent day, up until Akio sauntered right up to me at the end of my shift and started pestering me over the pastries he gave me the other day.

It took an hour to shake him off.

...

Two days later I had managed to finish another set of documents, Asiatic Black Bear and the Asian Leopard Cat. The sky hadn't quite cleared up, therefore somehow creating a terribly lazy and almost borderline gloomy and pensive feel to the air. It was my free day. So I spent it taking a trip to the local aquarium: a small, but very interesting building filled with tanks of mutated-looking fish and glowing lights and tourguides that all spoke in the same annoying monotone voice, the same speech they all probably had to repeat thousands of times.

I observed the fish in peace for about fifteen minutes. That was when a black-haired girl wearing a red scarf, marched right in and started trying to scare the fish and tap on the glass, despite being told to stop by several workers. She had one of those highlights in her hair or something, because her bangs were side-swept, and the right side was electric blue. Is that in style nowadays? I thought rather disdainfully. She looked a little young to be going for the punk look.

"Hey! Fish! Y'all are boring as hell ain'tcha?" She grumbled, flicking a sharp index finger at the glass. A much smaller kid scurried in after her and grabbed her arm. His right eye was wrapped in white bandages, (some freak accident?) and his hair had the exact same blue highlight. The rest of his hair was also black and very spiky, he looked more like a girl than his companion. The one eye that wasn't covered was a piercingly sharp gray color. He looked bored and real unhappy to be there.

"Stop it Alice. Do you really expect those fish to cater to your boredom? You want them to do summersaults?" He scolded. "Oooh, I'm so scared. Whatcha gonna do? World of cardboard speech? Ha! Like I need to listen to someone so boring! Go bother your little 'fairy friends'." She scoffed, with a giggle, the girl tossed her hair and scampered away. Probably to torment some other fish.

The boy stared after her, a terribly irate and annoyed scowl on his pale white face. It wasn't my place, but I leaned down next to him. "Kid, you shouldn't look so angry." I advised, I immediately regretted it. Even though I myself wasn't much better.

He returned the stare. But his irritated expression seemed to melt into a smile too big for his face, his gray eye sparkled with the joy and happiness of a child on Christmas morning and he said: "Mister, I do not think you can fathom that I am a deeply unhappy and angry person. I honestly find little joy in my life, and unfortunately am unable to end, said life. I idle around here with my companion who is spectacularly ungrateful to me. My life sucks. I've literally had a person off herself for me, and just like everyone else, I did absolutely nothing about it. Why, it's a miracle I don't walk about with a permanent scowl of disgust on my face!"

He turned and ran in the direction the girl had scampered off in.

I couldn't quite say I knew just what happened.

* * *

That night, I got a call from Tsubaki from the zoo, she said in her snippy voice that made everyone want to attack her with sticks, or make a sour face: "No offense dude, but you totally piss me off. You always project this air of superiority and it pisses me off. Stop it." And then she hung up.

I've noticed that when someone starts a sentence with "no offense", you can probably prepare to be horrendously insulted. But she had a point, because when I'm not hanging with the animals, I'm fantastically disgusted with life. And I probably look it too. I have next to zero friends outside the freak circus of Akio and Ayame that are actually normal and have accepted the fact that I am a social reject and will never adapt to social life outside of animals. And my life sucked so hard, I am more often than not, filled with the overwhelming desire to consume fatal amounts of glass.

* * *

The next day, on the subway to work, I came across the funny, short kid with the black hair and the gray eye. I mean, I almost didn't-but somehow I caught a glimpse of a blood-red scarf fluttering in the crevices of the crowd of people, attached to a girl who ran around, weaving in and around the people. She seemed to be having fun. I recognized her as the girl who was being kind of a pain in the ass at the aquarium. If she was there, that probably meant that-

"ALICE!" A high-pitched voice snapped, sure enough, the spiky hair emerged from the crowd, the kid scowled at her. "Can't you stay still for one, JUST. ONE. BLOODY. DAY?!" He seethed, "Hell no." The girl replied without any hesitation, from a distance, they sort of looked like an old couple or something.

The boy gave out sort of a dejected-sounding sigh. Probably regretting his life choices or something. "Please tie rocks to my ankles and walk me out to sea."

"Yeeeaaaahhh, I don't think you're heavy enough for that..."

"ARE YOU CALLING ME SHORT. SAY THAT AGAIN. I DARE YOU SAY THAT AGAIN TO MY FACE. GET DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME ALICE."

* * *

**And once more, is Blackstar, King Of The Jackasses. Or at least for now. In the gap between here and Asuka's chapter, I guess his personality may seem different, a little less emotionless and a bit more harsh. Not that it's an improvement. I have been trying to update faster, and I actually had this chapter written for a long time, but I couldn't find the time to edit it and upload it. This is because my best friend moved away a few days ago and I had been trying hard to spend a lot of time with her before she left, it was all very emotional and I'm already missing her like crazy, so I didn't have time to write. (Which is a really crappy excuse for my inactivity-I apologize.) but I will probably have the next chapter for this character up eventually. I hope. **

**-Alice (and now you know where my pen-name comes from) **


	8. The Summer I was 15 pt2

**Sorry this chapter is so short, running low on ideas...**

* * *

I was now sitting on the subway wedged between a bunch of old people and potential druggies (and a middle-aged man with a beard holding a sign that said 'Will Eat For Food'-it didn't make any sense.

The girl with the funky scarf was running around weaving in and out of the nooks and crannies between the people laughing merrily. I smiled a little, because apparently: some kids still enjoyed life while they still could. I was so absorbed with watching her in amusement that I didn't notice the thin, black-haired boy squeeze in effortlessly into the small space left of the seat beside me. For a few seconds, he didn't say anything, but just barely above the noise of the moving subway, he said something: "Is it refreshing to watch people enjoy themselves?" He asked with the slightest amusement visible on his pale, gaunt face.

Startled, I turned to the smaller child in shock. He glanced up at me blankly, his one visible eye scrutinizing me carefully. "Y-yeah..." I muttered in reply. "I guess so..."

Maybe it was because I was quite simply watching another child (I think) experiencing the joy of laughing and screwing with people in such mirth and pleasure, such a thing that I never had. Watching the boy carefully, as his expression slipped back into emotionless once more. "You live around here?" I asked cautiously.

"No." He replied shortly. "But I do live together with HER." He scoffed, jutting his finger towards the black-haired female wearing the scarf. "Unfortunately, circumstance does not permit us to love separately. Why? I cannot say, but I must hang around with that bloody yank."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you English?"

The boy nodded as to affirm my inquires. "Yes, but Alice says I sound like that baby from Family Guy-so I try to sound...well...more average."

"You shouldn't let what others say define you, or make your decisions based off of what other people think." Even though my advice somewhat applied to myself. The boy sucked in a breath and stared over his shoulder out the window, just the blackness of the tunnel whizzing by and the rumble of the tracks. "Well, if you hear something enough, it starts to affect you sooner or later." He whispered.

I didn't have any time to wonder what he meant.

"Your stop is coming." He said coldly, lifting his chin. I cocked an eyebrow, how could the kid tell? But just as he predicted, I could distantly hear the rumble dull slightly, the movement slowed considerably and I could sort of sense the stop approaching. Huh. He was right. The movement eventually stopped, and the loudspeaker came on, broadcasting our arrival.

I shrugged and stood up, retrieving my briefcase and walking to the doors that would slide open any second, you had to get there at the right time, or else you'd be trampled on the spot, or forced to the back of the subway car by a sea of bustling people.

As soon as the doors slid open, I leapt out onto the concrete and hurried towards the stairs leading into the station before I was swallowed by the mass of people exiting the subway in erratic waves.

I could somehow feel the piercing gray eye of the small boy on my back.

* * *

"You're late." Tsubaki greeted sharply as soon as I entered the gates of the zoo, she tapped a foot impatiently and glowered down at me. Tsubaki was 5'6" and I was around two inches taller and had almost no muscle on my arms compared to her, it wouldn't be pretty if she decided to get violent, but I'd she did, I pondered over if I would be able to defend myself by kicking her. I had always prided myself on that.

Instead, I pursed my lips. "But the zoo hasn't even opened yet." I pointed out in a curt manner. "Maybe you're just ridiculously early?" I suggested in a curt manned, Tsubaki narrowed her eyes into beady slits. Crap. I wanted to kick myself. Why did I say that? Now she would beat me up before the zoo even opened and would hang me from the gate by my collar.

"Tsubaki, don't pick on the new kid." Another employee scolded from the ice cream cart, he gave her a disapproving stare.

Surprisingly, she did not maul him. She just gave out a grunt of resignation and trudged back to her post.

Thankful to have been spared a possible beating by Tsubaki, I scampered hurriedly to the main office, past the souvenir shop and knocked on the door. "Mr. Akiyama?" I called quietly, I doubted he would hear me. I knocked at the door again, "Mr. Akiyama? Do you have the flyers for me to hand out?" I re-attempted, a little louder. A few seconds passed and a short reply came: "Come in, Liam."

Hesitant, I opened the door just a crack to see a middle-aged man sitting rather lazily at his desk, several cans of empty polish scattered around the floor, and at least a dozen solid gold trophies on the desk, shining beautifully as always. I glanced at one particularly large one with a golden tiger.

I swallowed the urge to scoff at the sight.

Ken Akiyama had always been a greedy person, ever since he started winning his awards, his greed had worsened, according to his daughter Ayame. He would always be cooking up plans to increase his success and to bring even more publicity to his name, he had little to no care whatsoever about the people around him and who he affected with his choices and his selfishness, Ayame had warned me before I had come in to apply for the job.

The man pointed to a stack of pink papers sitting neatly stacked on the far corner of the desk.

"There." He said plainly. "..." I forced a smile and nodded. I walked in the office, hit with a strong stench of shoe polish and metal. I resisted the urge to gag and instead, picked up the stack of flyers carefully. Backing towards the door hurriedly, I managed to whisper, "Thank you sir." In a rush to get far away from the smell and also Ken Akiyama himself.

He said nothing even as I carefully shut the door, waiting for him to say something at least, bid farewell or something. But he had already resumed his task of polishing that stupid collection of gold trophies.

I decided to pass them out near the playground, where most of the kids gathered when staring mindlessly at animals relieving themselves got boring enough, it was a smart place to attract business, I found out.

There were enough kids in the area all the time, so that usually meant more parents, parched from the heat and exhausted from chasing their kids all over the zoo while they inspected animals of all sizes and shapes, more parents also meant more people who would take the flyers because they were too tired to refuse, it had always been a good marketing spot, really.

But the zoo hadn't quite opened yet; I made my way over to a wooden bench with poorly painted giraffes and elephants on the sides and sat down on the chipped wood to inspect the flyers. Something I only did when I was really bored-Ken Akiyama's plans to expand the zoo were usually really stupid and not worth my time or energy to read into.

I ran a hand through my brown hair (that was unruly today also), and stared at the sheet of paper.

A chill ran through me.

By next year, we are proud to announce several attractions being placed in the animal habitats, in order to give the visitors a full, exciting look at the animals! So they can see all of The Akiyama Zoo's animals to the full extent!

Coming soon!

My hands shook, cold sweat dripped down my chin, my skin went absolutely cold and clammy. They would place attractions in the zoo. Inside the animals habitats.

I re-read the words repeatedly-maybe I'd made a mistake? I wondered frantically, surely...surely, not even Ken Akiyama would be so heartless. Right? But it was glaringly obvious, no matter how one could spin it, what would happen.

I'd watched enough documentaries to understand what would happen to the animals if this plan was actually carried out, what would happen if some petty greed for extra attractions and publicly actually caused such a huge impact. I knew perfectly well what would happen to the animals. It was sick.

My heart pounded wildly in my chest, slowly, I closed my eyes tightly, hoping to block out the road in my ears. Maybe it was all a dream? I hoped it was, God, if maybe if I tried hard enough, I'd wake in my own bed, and no such scheme actually existed.

But it was unmistakable reality I lived in.

* * *

The day passed in a blur, probably because not a second could go by that I couldn't hear a buzz in my ear, repeating the words, Attractions in the animal habitats, in my head over and over.

I had discarded the flyers in the nearby trashcan, taking care to shred each of them into tiny, microscopic pieces before letting the paper fall from my hands like confetti.

I had figured out that a place called the Amethyst Knights swordsman school was funding the project, they must have been pretty loaded.

And pretty mean. I thought to myself.

As I was walking out the gateway like I always did at the end of another long day, I was slightly surprised that Akio hadn't come barreling out of nowhere like he always did, boxes of glazed pastries in his arms.

I even stuck around and extra few minutes to see if he would show up or not. After fifteen minutes, I decided that Akio wasn't coming to bug me, and walked to the subway station.

...

As soon as I got home to my apartment, I didn't head straight for the shower like usual, but instead to my computer, I pulled out my chair and plopped down in front of the machine and logged on.

I pulled up the Internet explorer and typed in the words 'Amethyst Knights' slowly into the search engine.

Several results came up instantly.

Scanning the multiple different search results, I scrolled down to the bottom of the page and found a website for a swordsman school located in a remote area someplace in Europe. Curious, I clicked the link and was redirected to a strange-looking website with a passcode lock on it.

Damn.

I tried 'info about Amethyst Knights swordsman school'.

Again, only shit-Google results popped up for action figures and video games.

I closed that tab and instead, decided to look up swordsman schools in Europe.

There were thousands.

But there weren't any better options.

After an hour or scrolling through a never-ending list of swordsman schools in all of Europe tiredly, it wasn't until I was nearly at the bottom that a result for Amethyst Knights popped up.

Excited, my hands shook as I moved the cursor over the link, praying that I hadn't searched for over an hour just to find a dead end, and pressed my finger over the mouse.

A page popped up, captioned Amethyst Knights. I noticed that the last person who had edited it, had done so nearly a decade ago, it was small, but hopefully I could get a start from it.

...

After an insanely long amount of searching, keyboard-slamming, and devouring an unhealthy amount of zebra cakes my father always kept at the back of the fridge (and breaking my no sugar rule), I found out the following:

The Amethyst Knights were a really prestigious, but also slightly shady group of elite swordsmen.

The school was repeatedly relocated in different parts of the world, Europe being the last known location.

There were less than ten faculty and less than a hundred active students.

They were filthy rich.

...

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes, feeling them sting slightly from staring at the screen so long. God, I was tired.

I'd been scrolling through a comment thread that had been open for around five years, some of the commenters were talking about the Amethyst Knights or something.

I wasn't really sure what was going on:

**Bluejay_12: I heard that they're someplace in Denmark now.**

**XxxMikaxxX: Maybe, those Amethyst Knights have been elusive forever.**

**Bluejay_12: Still, I find it weird that nobody's seen them, ever since that darned extermination of the Nakatsukasa's or whatever, people have been saying that they've been even more shady.**

**Flareblitz00: True, that one was really bad. I wonder if they're still accepting students. I'd like to learn how to slice thin air with a sword. Lol.**

**XxxMikaxxX: I heard that ever since the Blue Tears incident, they've stopped accepting new students.**

**Bluejay_12: Duh, all the swordsman schools stopped accepting for a while after that one.**

**Bluejay_12: I hear that they've been recruiting new people in Russia.**

**Flareblitz00: Where the hell did you hear that?**

**XxxMikaxxX: I mean, it's supposed to be made up of people from all over the world.**

**Flareblitz00: I guess, I mean, I heard that the last seen student of the school was an Italian.**

**Bluejay_12: Now you're just making things up lmao.**

**Flareblitz00: I'm serious.**

**XxxMikaxxX: I've been digging around and they're like, in America or something.**

**Flareblitz00: Well, importantly, has any of the higher ups in that school been spotted in the last decade?**

**Bluejay_12: Actually, my English pen-pal who's interested in fencing told me that they've got this one guy, their star student who's coming to New Hope City in Japan to scope some construction out or whatever. He's supposed to have a purple robin tattoo on his right shoulder or something.**

**XxxMikaxxX: Woah, that's awesome! But I don't live in New Hope, so I guess seeing him is out of the question...:(**

I closed the tab and logged out of my computer and stared at the blank screen for a couple seconds, trying to process what I'd read.

First of all, I lived in New Hope City.

Second, all I had to do was to find some guy with a purple robin tattoo on his right shoulder.

Third, I would then proceed to kick his ass.

* * *

_To be continued..._


End file.
